Legacies
by Jennifer Wand
Summary: We are given legacies by those who leave us, but also by those who stay by our side. Matt/Mohinder, Maya, Elle; spoilers for all of Season 2 so far; slash. The slash is integral to the plot, but it is not the plot itself.
1. Prologue

**LEGACIES**

_by Jennifer Rubio (nee Wand)_

_Prologue_

It may have begun, Matt thought, the night Molly screamed and they both came running. The nightmares were getting worse, they said, perched in the doorway like two anxious birds guarding a nest. The frustration and helplessness were palpable in his voice, he knew. Mohinder wasn't much better. He wanted Matt to perform a miracle, wanted him to use his power to divine the secrets in her head. Why couldn't he just reach inside and pull the truth out? Matt tried to explain to him that it didn't work like that, as much as he himself wanted it to. He turned to get the water for her, but lingered a moment in the door as Mohinder went to her, patted her forehead, smoothed her damp hair.

And he began to sing a sort of tuneless melody in a language Matt didn't even recognize. Probably the language of his birth. And Molly's eyes got heavy, and her breathing became deep and regular. She fell asleep before Matt could even bring her the water. Before he could even go get it. Because he'd been frozen, stunned at the facility with which those hands and that voice had brought her peace. It didn't seem fair. Why should he be able to help her? He wasn't special like she was. Like Matt was.

Matt ought to understand her better than anyone. He'd saved her. He'd been there for her. He was getting ready to be a father himself, before all that fell apart. He knew what it was to have knowledge in your head that you didn't expect to have, didn't even want to have. Why couldn't he do for her what this perfectly ordinary doctor could do in a second? And so damned effortlessly? With the flutter of long eyelashes and the passing of a hand over her brow and an artlessly hummed song?

He felt huge and ugly and brutish and like he was always trying too hard in comparison. And worse, Mohinder treated him like he was all those things. He snapped at him. He smirked at him. He held Molly possessively, like she was his by right and Matt's only by happy accident. He was obnoxiously perfect in his every movement. He even spoke like something out of a film, always with perfect grammar and diction. If he was crystal, Matt was mud. They were made out of fundamentally different things. And for the life of him Matt couldn't figure out why this irked him so much.

But then they almost lost her. And it was Mohinder who made the hugely idiotic blunder of bringing her to the Company, and it was Matt who was able to break her out and bring her back home. All of a sudden the tables were turned. All of a sudden Matt was the conquering hero, the one she loved, the one she leaned on. He had saved her again. He had proved his worth. All was well.

And that night he caught Mohinder crying.

And that's when it really began.

* * *

He felt bad, invading that space, approaching the moat Mohinder had made of stacks of clothes and papers, suitcase open like a drawbridge, hiding within the ring like it was a fortress. He was leaving the next day for California and he had to pack. Matt had been so angry when he found out. "She's just now back to us and you're leaving!?" he'd roared. "What the hell are you even _good_ for?" Mohinder had snapped back at him about the virus and needing to save people's lives, and now that Matt was back wasn't that enough?

And they'd argued, and Molly had come in and accused them of arguing, and they'd said they were just discussing things. "Fine," she'd said, "but cut it out now, because your _discussing_ is keeping me awake." Matt walked back to her room with her, kissed her, promised he'd be there if anything happened (at least one of them would, he thought with a touch of petulance), and came back out to find Mohinder sitting on the floor with his head buried in his knees, crying.

At the sound of Matt's footsteps, he looked up and hurriedly wiped his eyes on his sleeve, continuing to pack methodically. His eyes were so red it hurt to look at them. Matt felt his heart lurch in his chest, and he was seized with guilt. "Look," he grumbled, not meeting those bloodshot eyes, "I know you've got to do what you've got to do. Sorry I said all that."

Mohinder's voice was still a little wobbly. "No," he said quietly, with a kind of half-smile. "You're right. About all of it. I... I already know I'm most likely no good for her."

"No. No, don't say that." Matt squatted down next to him. "Come on. You know that's not true."

"No, I don't." Mohinder's voice snapped, but the bite was muffled by a choked-back sob. "I don't know it's not true. Not at all."

Well, this was a weird predicament. He had to reassure the man he resented that he was a worthwhile father. "Look. For what it's worth? I do. I'm actually... really kind of..." The sharp beady eyes were on him, he could feel it. "I can't think of the word. But the point is, you're a good person. You're a good father to her. So don't do anything stupid in California, all right?" Shit. That's not what he'd planned to say. He could see Mohinder freezing up already. The defenses were coming back online.

"Thanks," Mohinder mumbled, looking away from him. "I think." _I guess that answers that question, in spades. Who knew he thought that little of me._

"Jesus-- no! That's not what I'm trying to-- damn it." Matt slapped his palm to his forehead. "I think--" He heard what he was about to say in time to be horrified, but not in time to stop it. "I think the world of you. OK?"

Mohinder stared at him.

Now that it was out, it seemed easier to justify. "That is-- you're brilliant, you're a doctor, for God's sake-- you're a good father, you're a-- a good guy. I kinda--" He squinted, as though it might help focus his thoughts. "I kinda like you. Surprisingly enough."

"That_is_ a surprise." There it was, that half-smirking tone that drove him up a wall. Matt immediately felt nervous, and he wanted to look behind him to find a safe place to retreat to. But, on the other hand, he was kind of relieved--at least Mohinder's confidence had returned. It was disconcerting to see him as vulnerable as he'd been. "I..." _I rather like you as well._ "I appreciate the thought."

Matt was blushing before he could hide his reaction. Mohinder looked at him, saw the panic in his face, and quickly made excuses. "Not. Not like that. I... just meant." He heaved a sigh. "The point is, I'm terrible at showing it, but I do appreciate what you've done here. For her." He swallowed. "And I'm aware that I'm difficult to live with."

"Not really, considering you're never home," Matt said before he could help it. "Shit, I need to learn to bite my tongue."

"Fair is fair," Mohinder shrugged. There was an actual, genuine smile, not a smirk, lighting his features. "You know something? I think this may be the first actual conversation we've ever had."

"You may be right." Matt let himself smile back.

There was a moment of uncomfortable silence. Matt could hear each tick of the second hand on Mohinder's watch.

"We, uh. We never really took the time to talk about all this, did we?" he said finally, looking away. "Or anything. I just sort of showed up and wouldn't leave her alone, and somehow it ended up like this."

"We were not terribly mature about the situation, no," agreed Mohinder.

"I don't regret it," said Matt impulsively, his eyes rushing to the man's face.

Mohinder smiled again. Again, it was warm. Perhaps just the warmth that comes in the aftermath of tears. But it was an odd sensation to see that warmth angled toward him. "No. Neither do I," he said. Matt realized then that the warmth was in his voice and gaze, not just his smile. And he felt a twinge and a rush of something that made him very, very nervous.

He got up, dusting himself off. "Well. I'll let you finish packing. You don't want to miss your flight," he admonished as he headed toward the doorway.

"Matt."

The voice was oddly clarion clear. Mohinder barely ever addressed him by name. He turned.

He was struck again by the warmth, but also by the fragility of the man who sat there. Mohinder was twisted toward him, chin angled up as though in supplication, and the smile on his face was tinged with sadness. He looked like he might break apart or melt away if the wrong tide were to come in. "Would you mind terribly... keeping me company for a little while? It's..." He looked down, to the side, around, as though the words had scurried with the cockroaches into a dark corner of the room. "It's very quiet in here late at night."

Matt felt another unnameable emotion. He stomped back and took a seat on the desk chair, backwards so his legs spread wide against the back of it. "Sure. I guess better late than never, right? Us talking, that is."

"Yes." The eyelashes flickered again. Damn, but the man had long eyelashes. What a thing to notice, though. "Yes, it is."

Mohinder continued to fold clothes into the suitcase. It was a wonder to Matt how small he was able to fold them, how compact they became with just a few deft motions. After a while he looked up. "Well. Now that we've agreed to talk, we seem to be excellent at not doing so," he observed.

"Sorry. Sorry, I just spaced out a little." Matt racked his brain. "So... what do you want to talk about?"

"I don't know. Anything." But the thought came leaping to the fore. _Tell me about your power._

_Always the scientist,_ Matt thought. "Um, what do you want to know about it?"

Mohinder looked at him and blushed. "That's right. You can do that," he said, surprised. "Mostly I'm interested in how and when it first manifested. But anything you can tell me. You've seen some changes recently, am I right?"

"Uh, yeah." Actually, it had been Molly who'd told him about what Matt had been able to do. She'd mentioned it as the three of them went home from the Company earlier that night. Almost immediately, Mohinder's mind had begun buzzing with the possibilities of it, and some of the thoughts Matt heard there had scared him. "The first time I... Well, the first time I knew I used it was when I heard her voice. Molly's. It's because of her that this whole thing happened, kind of."

"The invisible hand of destiny at work, I suppose."

"Hm. Maybe. And now it's changing, which is strange. I don't really remember it changing before. I'd never done those things before, what I did with my dad." He sounded like he was making excuses, like he'd done something wrong.

"It's not unusual, however." Something seemed to animate Mohinder, light him up like a candle. "One thing I've noticed is that these abilities seem to alter in response to major life events. It's quite extraordinary to think about, actually. At some point I'd like to do a detailed analysis of the phenomenon."

"Of what, changing?" Matt shifted in the chair. "Isn't it the same as anything else? The rest of us changes as we get older, learn stuff. Why would this be any different?"

The gentle hands stopped in midair. Mohinder seemed to quiver a little bit. "You may be right. I hadn't thought about it that way."

Matt shrugged dismissively. "Well, don't listen to me. You're the scientist."

Mohinder watched him blush and bluster, a spark of amusement in his eyes. "No, it's a valid point," he finally said. "I've always considered our genetic legacy to be somewhat static. We receive our DNA from our parents, and it is permanent. But that doesn't mean that, just as our hair turns gray and our bodies develop, the manifestation of that legacy doesn't change. I don't see why it shouldn't be the same for genetic abnormalities as it is for normalities."

"Uh. Right." Matt wasn't sure he hadn't gotten lost along the way. "I really wouldn't listen to me if I were you."

"No, not at all." The response came along with a wide smile-- a strange contrast with the still-red eyes. "You don't have to be a scientist to have a hypothesis," he said. "There's no reason your idea shouldn't be considered, if it holds water. Which, at first blush, it appears to do."

"Well. Thanks, I guess."

They fell into near-silence, just the rhythm of Mohinder's adept folding of the clothes and Matt's stare and both their breaths budging at the corners of the stillness. Matt cleared his throat. "So, uh, how's work been? I mean. Before all this happened. Were you working on anything interesting?"

"I've been researching the virus." From stillness back into animation, so quickly. It was as though a switch could flip him from off to on. "The mere fact that it's reappeard after more than 25 years is startling. The pathology makes very little sense. Niki notwithstanding, a strain of it presented in Haiti. How on earth it could migrate there without any intervening infections is puzzling, to say the least."

"But wasn't the guy who got it connected to the Company?"

"Well, yes. But he'd been at home for at least a month. Apparently he'd made some sort of mistake, and they-- what's the word-- relieved him of active duty."

"Benched him."

"Yes, that's it. The procession of the virus appears to have been quite rapid, more so than Molly's was when she contracted it. So it appears unlikely that the Company infected him, at least, not here on the mainland." He'd begun gesturing with a pair of socks, completely unaware of how bizarre it looked. Matt fought back a chuckle. "Which brings me back to the original problem, which is: How did it find its way out there? So I'm attempting to track the epidemiology of it..." Mohinder looked up and finally saw Matt biting his lip. A lopsided, tired grin found its way onto his face. "I'm boring the living daylights out of you, aren't I?"

Matt shook himself out of the sort of hypnotic trance he'd fallen into watching that pair of socks dance about. "I'm here to keep _you_ company," he said genially. "You don't have to entertain me."

"Very selfless of you." Mohinder was more than a little amused.

"Hey, pretending to understand things I don't get is my forte. I've done it my whole life."

The conversation dried up for a while after that, but as Mohinder folded up the last of his shirts, he commented, "We have rather a lot in common for two people who've never sat down and talked before."

"You flirting with me?"

He laughed. "I'm afraid I don't have those inclinations. I hope you're not too disappointed."

"OK, good," Matt said quickly. "Because you never know these days." At the same time, he realized he'd been watching Mohinder's hands all this time. Something about the way he folded a shirt was fascinating.

"But I _am_ glad we talked."

Eyes met his, and Matt felt a little like he'd been given a gift. "Yeah. Me too. Kinda nice to have..." He trailed off, but Mohinder finished his thought.

_A friend._

"Yeah. A friend." Matt grinned.

Mohinder shut the suitcase with a bang. They said their goodnights and went to their rooms.

Maybe that was the beginning. Or perhaps it was just the prelude. Because then there was California and there was Texas and it was all on hold until Matt came home to a frightened girl and an angry man and a strange woman, and the wheel began to turn.

**Next: When he came home.**


	2. Chapter 1

**LEGACIES**

_by Jennifer Rubio (nee Wand)_

_Chapter 1_

When he opened the apartment door, Molly was there, calling his name and springing into his arms. "Hi there," he said, breathing in the smell of her hair. "I missed you, too." Then, two things struck him simultaneously. One, Molly was trembling and holding him far too tightly; and two, there was a woman he'd never seen before standing in his apartment, staring at him blankly.

"Sylar was here," came a flat, accented voice.

Mohinder was standing in a far corner of the room, so still Matt hadn't even noticed him.

His knees began to knock with dread. "What?" He felt cold, almost frozen, all of a sudden. Molly was hot to the touch in comparison. He shivered as he held her, squeezing her so tight she whimpered. "Oh, my God. Oh, no. Baby, are you OK?" Her fierce little nod against his shoulder was like a sweet whisper of relief. "Oh, thank God. Oh, no."

"Welcome home," Molly said quietly in his ear, her voice and arms shaking. "Don't go anywhere for a while, OK? Stay here for a while?" The note of sweet faith in her voice was crushing to him.

"Of course, of course, of course I will." He covered the top of her head with kisses. "I'm so, so sorry. I will never leave you alone again. I promise." He squeezed his eyes shut. There was an angry question in Mohinder's eyes, and another question in the form of a mysterious girl, and he had to shut it all out. He had to process all the guilt and relief that was flooding through him. She was safe. She'd come through unscathed. Thank God. But he hadn't been here. He hadn't protected her. He cursed himself, held her tight, rocked her in his arms. Anything to put the demons at bay. Her demons, and his own.

But Mohinder was still glaring at him, and there was still a strange woman in his kitchen. So he kissed her ear and breathed, "Sweetie, can you give us a little time to talk? Go pick out your favorite game, and we'll have a tournament when I'm done. Any game you want."

"Even Scrabble?" God bless children for being as resilient as they were. She was poking fun at him already.

Matt grumbled dramatically as he set her down. "Yes, even Scrabble. You just love it when I can't spell things, don't you?"

She reached up, hugged him again briefly. "I missed you," she said, and ran off to her room. The minute she was gone, Matt wished she were back again. Now there was nothing but him, the stranger, and the glare on Mohinder's face.

"Apparently you felt it was all right to leave Molly with a babysitter while you ran off in search of God knows what. She says they were alone for two days?" Mohinder spoke curtly. His accusation had the ring of something that had been whirling around in his head for anger-filled hours, layering and echoing over itself until, when it finally came out, it was poison in the air.

Matt went on the defensive, flushing with rage. "Where were _you_? Weren't you here?" He knew he was painting himself into a corner, but his anger was ruling him and all he knew to do was lash out. Sylar! _Sylar!_ Of all the people in all the places at all the times...

"No, I was not here! Or did it escape your notice that you were leaving an eight-year-old child alone when you went off on whatever insane manhunt possessed you this time?" Mohinder was advancing on him. The dark-skinned girl was still staring. It was all patently absurd.

He had to throw the brakes. "Wait. Wait. Stop. Just... stop. First of all, Sylar's alive? I thought he was dead. You told me he was killed! And who are you?" he added impatiently, turning to the girl, whose eyes rounded into glassy marbles at the sudden attention.

"Her name is Maya. Sylar used her, played her for a fool, and now she has nowhere to go," Mohinder explained impatiently.

"So what, she's just staying here?" Matt exploded. "The more the merrier in this big happy family? What the _hell_ is going on here!?"

"Please." It was the first word she'd spoken, and she flipped her "l" in a delicate way. When she went on, Matt was able to recognize that English was not her native tongue. "Please sit down. I will try to explain."

Matt caught Mohinder's eyes, glaring into them purposefully, as he took the seat she offered. Mohinder's lips pursed as though around a question, but it went unasked. Instead, Maya began to tell her story.

It took barely two sentences before Matt was on his feet again, pointing toward the door. "OUT," he said.

Tears filled Maya's eyes. Mohinder rose as well. "Now hold on a moment," he started.

"Are you insane?" Matt roared. "She kills people when she gets upset?! And you're letting her stay HERE?"

"I can control it," Maya pleaded. "Please, I have no place to go..."

"You're damn straight you don't. Least of all here, around my kid."

"_Our_ kid," Mohinder said quietly but firmly. "And I'll thank you to remember that you're in the exact same position she is."

A fire lit in Matt's eyes. "Did you hear what you just said?" he demanded. "_Ours._ That means mine, too. So don't you threaten me like you're just some landlord and I'm a deadbeat tenant. You're not throwing me out of here." There was a waver in his voice at this last statement that could have been fear. Or pleading. Or faith. Neither Matt nor Mohinder was quite sure.

"I..." Maya's high, gentle voice cut through the stillness that followed. "I will go take a walk. You can talk together."

Mohinder started. "Maya, wait."

"It's all right." Her smile was gentle, but maybe just a little too bright. "I will be, ah, twenty minutes. I will knock when I return." Her smile twitched slightly, but she turned the doorknob without a sound and left.

When she was gone, Matt sunk to the table, put his head in his hands, and groaned. "Sylar! God DAMN it!"

Mohinder stared at him for a long moment. "I'm sorry I snapped at you," he said finally. "I've just been all alone here, dealing with this, and--"

"It's not safe here," Matt interrupted. "We're going to have to move."

"I know." Mohinder nodded gravely. "I've already inquired about another apartment. I'll show you the photos and the listing for it if you--"

"That's not important," Matt said firmly. "What's important is that we get out of here as soon as possible. We should probably pull her out of school, too. Shit!" He shook his head. "I was-- I thought I was doing the right thing for Molly. I thought I was going to save the world, more or less!" He laughed bitterly. "I never should have left her. I--"

On impulse, Mohinder reached across the table and touched his hand briefly. "You couldn't have known. I thought Sylar was dead as well. Unfortunately for all of us, we were mistaken."

Matt stared at the hand on the table, just a few inches from his. It had been warm when it had touched him, and he thought that was strange. Why should it be strange that Mohinder's hand was warm? Nervously he looked up, furrowing his brow at him. There was some color in his cheeks, and his gaze was steady. It made Matt a little uncomfortable. There were several minutes of silence.

"I don't want that woman here," he said lamely.

"Trust me, neither do I." Mohinder's eyes slid to the side. "She frightens me. If she breaks down in front of Molly and can't control herself..."

"Then why?"

"Because now that I know what she can do, I'd be an accessory to murder if I were to let her go elsewhere." His voice was an anxious rasp. "I think I may be able to help her. I think the Company may be able--"

"Oh. Great. Right. The Company." Matt sighed laboriously. "How many times have I got to tell you this? They _made_ the virus. They abducted me. They shot Nathan Petrelli--"

"You don't know that."

"Yes, I do, and so do you." Matt fixed him with a stare. "I get what you're trying to do, but putting my... putting _our_ daughter in danger crosses the line." He paused. "Let's not do this, Mohinder. Before you left, I was pretty sure we were starting to get along."

The corners of Mohinder's mouth turned up. "Yes. It was a pleasant change."

"But put Molly in danger and all bets are off, you understand? _Everything_ is over." His fist on the table curled, a reminder to Mohinder that Matt was the stronger one, should it ever come to that.

Mohinder sighed. "You're right, of course. We'll... find a place for her. But I'll need to check on her, often. Now that she knows the truth about Sylar, she's just one more target for him."

"And if he could get his hands on _that_ power..." Matt didn't need to finish the sentence. They both shuddered.

"So I guess we'll be packing again," Matt said, cracking a smile. Mohinder answered it weakly. And before he knew he was doing it, Matt was moving his hand over the table toward Mohinder's.

He stopped before they made contact. They stared at each other.

Then the door swung open. Maya stood there, looking slightly surprised and staring at the door as though she'd just seen a ghost open it for her.

"I'm sorry," she mumbled. "I was going to knock, but..."

"Hellooo!"

Mohinder shuddered at the voice.

"So this is your place, huh? God, it smells. I think you need to take out your garbage or something." The sunshine-flash of blonde hair was accompanied by the rhythmic click of heels as the woman strode in. "Damn. Oh, no, it's your disposal," she said, sniffing the sink. "Don't you ever run it?"

When she turned around and finally noticed Matt, their mouths opened in unison. "Who the hell are you?" they both asked.

Mohinder hid his head in his hands. "Matt, meet Elle," he said, sighing heavily. "Elle, this is Officer Matt Parkman. He lives here, too. You remember my employer, Bob Bishop? Elle is his daughter."

"And your partner. Don't forget that," Elle said, striding forward to shake Matt's hand. He drew back at the shock of static electricity, and she pretended not to notice as she turned toward Mohinder. "But seriously, Doctor S, I finally figured out who she is! I didn't realize it when I met her before. Had bigger fish to fry."

She let a crackle of electricity demonstrate just how literally she meant that, and Matt stepped back, his eyes wide and his mouth gaping. "Jesus Christ, Mohinder, how many dangerous women have been under this roof while I've been gone?"

Elle found this uproariously funny. "I like him already!" she cackled.

"Oh, please, God, no," whimpered Mohinder under his breath. Matt stared at him, confused.

But Elle had already moved on. "So when were you going to tell me you'd picked her up? I mean, didn't you know we've been looking for her like crazy?"

"Who... what?"

"This chickie, of course," Elle smiled widely. A bit of bubblegum flashed pink between her teeth as she pointed at Maya.

"What are you planning?" Mohinder's eyes were dark. Matt looked over at him and saw the flashes of suspicion burning deep within those black orbs.

"What? She's a danger, we're going to neutralize her. Make the bad stuff go away. We _can_ do that, you know." And then Elle did the most disconcerting thing of all: she slung an arm around Maya and smiled widely.

"Don't you two worry about a thing," she said, the low corners of her voice scraping gravel. "We're going to take _very_ good care of her."

**Next: Company-style hospitality.**


	3. Chapter 2

**LEGACIES**

by Jennifer Rubio (nee Wand)

_Chapter 2_

Mohinder insisted on watching over Maya as she went into what Elle blithely called "detox." A quiet room, a handful of pills each day. After a week, Maya started to cry from the loneliness of it, and at the sight of her clear, honest tears, Mohinder put his foot down. It was one thing to help her through the hardest part, he said, but it was quite another to imprison her. Bob had allowed Mohinder to visit her, of course, and Elle was in there often as well (Maya's gratitude to her outweighed her obvious distaste for the girl's showmanship), but Mohinder had leverage, and the end Maya was allowed to move out to a small, furnished short-term rental close by. She continued to take her pills, though, just like an obedient student. She was the one person for whom it seemed to be a genuine relief to not have any power.

Mohinder couldn't help but envy her that clarity. There were times, in his darker hours, when he wanted nothing more than to have some demon he could unleash, some power of vengeance he could rain down in the city until he found Sylar and was able to ensure his daughter's safety.

He had thought many times about asking Molly to find him. But she was still so fragile from having seen him. And Matt would never forgive him if he were to do anything, much less the same thing that nearly tore their household apart when Matt himself had tried it. Plus, it had been days. Sylar was not, apparently, in a hurry to kill them.

Still, they moved that weekend to an apartment high up in Co-op City. It wasn't particularly pretty, but the altitude made them feel a little more secure. As far as they knew, Sylar still had to use elevators like a regular person. Nathan Petrelli's power remained out of his reach-- he was one of the few people who were victimized by someone else.

Nathan had succumbed quietly after several days of fighting. A warrior to the end. Matt had wanted to go, to be there for Peter, to look over the cold body that had come so close to freeing them all. But he'd sworn to never leave again, and Mohinder was quick to remind him of that. In the end, he'd hung his head and given up. Besides, Peter could drop by anytime, Mohinder reminded him. If he needed to talk, he would get in touch.

Things were almost normal for a time.

Maya was starting to move past the tragedy she'd endured, and she was proving to be fairly pleasant company when she was not petrified or pining—emotions that took up slightly less of her time as the days wore on. What worried Mohinder more was that she started dropping by unexpectedly.

At first it was only to say hello. To tell him she'd taken a job as a waitress in a local restaurant. It was only fast food, she said, but it was something, and the manager didn't ask too many questions. Then it was to see how Molly was doing. To see if they'd heard anything from "that man." To bring over some churros she'd baked on a whim.

Really, Mohinder thought, she was just lonely. She'd been on the run for so long, she'd forgotten what it was to interact with people. She would stand in the doorway, looking like she had something she was struggling to say. Her eyes would flicker past him to see if Matt was home. He had tried to be polite, but she didn't trust cops, and he didn't trust strange women who appeared without warning in small apartments, so Mohinder didn't hold out much hope for a friendship to blossom there.

Then, one day, she showed up with a look of steel on her face.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Doctor," she said politely, but she was not smiling. In the adjoining room, Matt grimaced and waved halfheartedly at her. She didn't notice.

"No, not at all." Mohinder looked between the two of them nervously. Matt was eyeing her like she was likely to spontaneously explode any moment. "Please, come in. How are you feeling?"

"I'm fine." She finally managed a weak smile. "I actually was wondering if I could talk to you."

He sensed some trepidation in her voice, and shot Matt a look. He got up with a _Don't mind me, I just live here_ sort of pout, and went down the hall, leaving them alone. "Of course," he said, pulling out a chair for her at the kitchen table. "What about?"

"Genetics."

Perhaps the one answer he hadn't been expecting. "I beg your pardon?"

"I read every word of your father's book, Doctor," she said, leaning forward. "Ever since this started happening to me, I've tried everything I could to understand it, control it. But one can only learn so much from books, don't you think?"

He was still dumbfounded. "Well, that is true, I suppose," he admitted.

"That's why I'm so glad I'm being allowed to stay here," she enthused. Her face was pink. "I'm sure that if you could teach me, I'll be able to start understanding what's happening to me."

"_Is_ something happening?" he said, drawing in a quick breath.

She waved her hands frantically. "No, no, I mean, what _happened._ I' m sorry. My English is not good. But, may I come to ask you questions once in a while? I won't be a bother, I promise."

"Well... that's fine, I suppose." He cursed himself for being so reactive. There was just something in him, a cornered animal called instinct, that had pawed at the bars to its cage when she said those words. Something made him afraid, something visceral and irrational. He fought it down. He always did, after all.

"Thank you, Doctor!" She threw her arms around him and gave him a squeeze. Mohinder blushed, unsettled. If she'd been anyone else, he would have suspected an ulterior motive, but Maya was so very innocent. Almost embarrassingly so. Did she even know what it was to embrace another adult? In so many ways, she was such a child inside that he felt he had good reason to doubt.

As he watched Maya go, Mohinder became aware of a presence behind him. "That was a hell of a hug," Matt said darkly.

Mohinder scratched his head and was about to speak when Matt went on. "You know I don't like it when she's over here."

Something about his tone, the judgmental harshness of it, irked Mohinder. "She's no danger to anyone right now," he snapped. "You can't expect her to live like a hermit the rest of her life."

"So let her go make some friends! Why does she have to be here?" When Matt was angry, Mohinder had noticed, he seemed squatter, shorter, like he was trying to fill as much of the room as possible with his presence. Like a dog trying to mark his territory, minus the leg-lifting and bad smell, of course, he thought suddenly, and had to laugh to himself at how very, very well that metaphor worked.

"I don't know," he said, forcing his mind back on topic. "But I can't be rude to the woman. She doesn't know anyone around here, and she has questions that only I can answer."

"Oh, sorry, I forgot you were the Doctor to the Superheroes." Matt rolled his eyes.

How easily he got riled up whenever Matt acted this way! "You didn't mind that appellation when I was saving your life. Or that of your daughter. Or helping you control your new ability."

To Mohinder's great surprise, Matt sighed. "OK, you're right," he said, ruffling his hair. "You've got a point. I'm sorry. I'm trying not to be a pain, but, you know..."

"Old habits die hard." Mohinder's lips twitched with amusement.

Matt grumbled at him with an exaggerated frown and sat down. Like a big, grumpy dog, Mohinder thought again. He wondered idly what sort of look he would get on his face if someone were to scratch him behind the ears.

"You know what I worry about, sometimes?" Matt said, sounding kind of wistful. "What happens if you or I meet somebody? You know. A woman. And want to settle down. Move out."

Mohinder stopped moving. It wasn't something he'd contemplated recently. Romance was so far removed from the bizarre life he'd been living. "Wait. You think Maya...?"

"Not her, not necessarily. Just anyone. What happens to us? I mean, where Molly's concerned."

"That's a very good question. I hadn't thought about it." Mohinder sat down opposite him. "I suppose I don't have any way to adopt her, not being a citizen. I suppose I would have to relinquish custody to you." The words slid out too easily, but they stung once they hit air.

"Aw. No, I couldn't. I'd never take her from you." As though there were any choice in the matter.

"I feel the same way." When Matt's eyes met his, Mohinder felt his breath catch. The relief and joy there were palpable. "You didn't honestly think I'd ever try to..." He shook his head. "Matt, she needs both of us. I'd think by now that'd be obvious."

Matt grinned widely. "I guess we're going to have to avoid falling in love, then?"

"To the extent possible, yes." Mohinder found himself smiling, too. "I pledge to devote my life to science, if that helps."

"It does, it does." Matt nodded. "And I, like Batman, will spend my days going after the bad guys." He crossed his heart and nodded soberly as though taking an oath.

Mohinder couldn't help it-- he snorted. Matt looked at him reproachfully. They smiled at each other for a long moment before realizing how odd that was, then went their separate ways. Mohinder's heartbeat felt jagged and raw for several minutes afterward.

* * *

Elle was in the filing room when Mohinder went to pull his files the next morning. Elle, of all people. He'd never seen her read anything more strenuous than an _US Weekly._

At the sound of him behind her, she jumped and whirled. "Hi, Doctor S," she said, tilting her head. Her hands were clutched around a manila folder.

"What are you doing in here?" he asked suspiciously.

"Looking for you, actually," she said, grinning. "I had a question."

He held out his hand. "I take it that file's for me, then?"

"What, this?" She held it closer to her chest. "No, that's something else. Anyway. What I wanted to ask you was, how your research was going. About the virus. And stuff. Um, Dad asked me." Her sentences were choppy, hesitant. He had a fairly strong sense that she was lying through her teeth.

He responded icily, "It's going fine. Thank you for asking."

"That's not enough detail. Dad wants a full report. Now get talking." She looked impatient.

"You're serious?"

"As a heart attack. You want one so's you can compare?" She sent an arc of blue lightning up into the air around her palm. A corner of a folder on the upper shelf caught flame for a moment before crumbling to dark ash.

She may have been a lousy liar, but Mohinder knew she'd back up that lie with a hell of a lot of pain. "Fine. You can tell him that I have recently been able to determine the point in the strain's mutation process at which my blood ceases to be effective in counteracting its effects."

He'd hoped he'd lost her at that point, but she nodded and motioned for him to go on. "And what point is that?"

Mohinder sighed. Might as well explain the lot. "It's quite remarkable, actually. The airborne strain, the one that was destroyed by Peter Petrelli, was a contemporaneous sibling of the strain with which Niki infected herself. That is, they were created at roughly the same time and mutated in vastly different ways. What this means is that conceivably, although I wasn't able to cure Niki, my blood probably would be able to cure those infected with Strain 138."

"That sounds good." Elle's eyes had slid to the side, and she was now contemplating her manicure. Mohinder doubted very much she was actually listening.

"Not really," he continued in a weary tone, "The airborne nature of the strain would mean that if it were released, it would spread more quickly than I would be able to contain. So I could cure perhaps a dozen people in the time it took for half the world to be wiped out. Still, in theory it's a very interesting bit of trivia."

"But that strain's gone," she said, still looking at her nails. "So it's a moot point. I mean, why bother looking at where it came from?"

It was a decent question, he thought with some surprise. Perhaps he'd underestimated her intelligence. Then the inspiration struck. She'd been restricted to office work since she failed to take care of Bennet; perhaps she was bored.

"Do you have an interest in lab work?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It's better than filing."

"Well, I do realize it's not assassination, but I probably could use your help once in a while," he said, putting on his best and most charming smile. "Drop by anytime you feel an inclination."

Her eyes softened, and she regarded him lazily through catlike eyes. His instinct had been right-- she was still vulnerable. In those moments after Sylar had gone, when he'd praised her, she'd looked like a child. Although he hated himself for thinking it-- Bennet's influence was making him callous-- he could probably manipulate her fairly well. It was possible that she might willingly give him information that Bob would be less forthcoming about.

"Well, OK, then," she said cautiously. "Maybe I will."

"Just..." He cleared his throat. "Knock first."

She rolled her eyes and turned to go. The conversation should have been over at that moment.

But as she passed, he noticed for the first time the name on the folder she'd been clutching. His eyes widened and he grabbed her wrist.

"Why do you have a file on Maya?"

"Why? S...she did have treatment here, did you forget that?" Elle brushed a strand of hair back from her face, her eyes darting back and forth.

"Why are you carrying it?" Mohinder started to feel as though he were playing a game of Questions; first one to get an actual answer wins. He wasn't in the mood to play games. "Give me that," he said, grabbing for it. Elle squealed and shocked him; he ended up thrown backward onto a nearby office chair, the electricity spiraling down his spine and into the cushion, then the metallic legs in a series of small, painful jolts. He gaped at her, outraged. "What-- what are you not telling me?"

She turned up her nose. "Frankly, Doctor S," she said coolly, "that's none of your business." Whirling, she marched from the room.

Mohinder could only think blankly that she sounded just like her father.

* * *

Elle took him up on his offer, and quickly made a nuisance of herself. It was unexpected visits from Elle at work and Maya at home, and he felt irked, as though a wicked blonde devil and a soulful, tanned angel were tag-teaming him, trying by turns to divert his attention. And his angel and devil quota had already been filled, both at once, in Molly, so he had no room for them.

Stranger and more worrisome still were the brief snips of conversation Matt and he would have. It was the first they'd lived together for any significant length of time, and in addition to the usual adjustments, there was also an eerie sense of familiarity. When they were not bickering, they were thinking the same thing at the same time. The strangeness with which they interacted unsettled Mohinder; he wasn't sure whether he was bothered more by the friction or by the times of utter parallel.

There were times their eyes would meet and without a word they would know what was coming next. Matt would open his mouth and Mohinder would say "It's my week to buy the groceries. Right." Or Molly would have a sore throat and they would both come home with the same flavor of cough drops. Or, worst of all, they would begin to chat in the early evening and the next time they looked up it was three a.m.

What Mohinder realized after a while was that they were actually building a relationship. A partnership was forming between them. Like two sides of a bridge that meet over a rushing river below, utterly scared of falling. Once the two meet, they should be comforted, yes; but they're still looking at a long tumble to the rapids and jagged rocks should they be unable to fit together in just the right way. It was terrifying.

And it went unsaid for a long time.

There were school meetings to attend and people with extraordinary powers to find. Minds to read and mobsters to corner. Laundry detergent to buy. Keys that got lost. The rise and fall of the normal days, like tides.

It was a late night when the subject finally broke through the surface of the thoughts. It wasn't that they were drinking; sometimes the lateness of the hour is enough to render an otherwise sane man honest. Fatigue is a powerful truth serum. In any case, it was Matt who looked over at the man at the desk, typing ardently away as 3-D computer models of molecules rotated on the screen, and felt the need to say something.

They'd been silent for a long time; just hanging out in the same room, letting each other pursue his pastime of choice, was a nightly ritual for them. Why the same room? It was just the way it had evolved. Sometimes one or both retreated to the bedroom, but there was something comforting about having someone there who occasionally got up and went to the bathroom, or offered you a cup of tea, or did something to remind you that you didn't live in isolation. A purely social impulse.

"Does this seem weird to you?" Matt said suddenly.

"Weird?" Mohinder turned and stared at him. Matt had been checking out a sports magazine, squinting at the statistics on the page, but he raised his eyes to meet Mohinder's.

"The way things have been. You know." He pointed to Mohinder and then himself, flapping his arms between the two poles repeatedly. The gesture for "between us" for those who couldn't vocalize it.

It was met by a stiff shake of the head. "I don't know what you're talking about."

Matt lowered his eyes again. "Never mind, then." A grumble.

Mohinder hoped he would leave it there, and he did; amazingly enough, he seemed to be content with that answer. Mohinder wasn't, however; he felt a strange compression in the chest that he didn't entirely like. He felt the words burning up inside him and eventually they just had to get said. He stood up. "I'm lying. I do know what you're talking about." His fingers ran nervously through his hair. "And yes. It's very weird."

He came to sit down beside Matt on the couch. Hip near hip.

Matt scooted away. A little. Trying to be subtle. Trying not to let on—-or to recognize himself—-that it was the hip-near-hip part that had him so on edge.

Mohinder finished running his hand through his hair and laid his palms flat on the couch cushion.

Except for he didn't. One of his palms, entirely by accident, came down on Matt's hand.

"Oh," he said, and picked it up again.

Except for he didn't do that either.

Instead, they both stared at those hands, pressed together like a layer cake, like a hinge.

"Oh, shit," said Matt.

He looked up at Mohinder. There was oh-shit in his eyes, too. They were terrified, those eyes.

"I didn't mean."

"I've never. I mean, I didn't... Shit. This is bad."

"What are we supposed to do now?"

"I don't know. Ignore it? Hope it goes away?"

"Yes, that's probably wise." This time the hand did manage to withdraw. He folded his hands in his lap and his eyes focused narrowly on their clasping fingers.

A long, long silence crept across them, like the shadow of a cat against a fence at night.

"This is really happening, isn't it." It was a statement, not a question.

"Yes, it really is." Resignation in Mohinder's voice.

"So, what? Are we just supposed to go with it?"

"I thought we just agreed to ignore it." And now the voice was ticked off.

"Right. I knew that." A beat. "Here's the thing. I don't think I can."

"Oh, wonderful." Spark became fire. Mohinder flew to his feet again. "We've finally achieved some measure of stability and you're going to throw it away because of a momentary weakness." He paced a moment, then stopped. "How about this. Make it go away. Get it out of my head. Use your ability. You know you can."

Matt got up as well, his eyebrows furrowed in sudden anger. "What the-- why would I? So I can be the only one who's thinking about it?"

"At least if it's unrequited attraction it won't be destroying both of us!"

Shit. He used the word. _Attraction._

"You think I want to be feeling this? You think I want to look into your mind and see me?"

"Then get rid of it." Desperation now. "Please."

"Mohinder."

Somehow the use of the name was like a death knell. Death of denial.

"Maybe... this is a good thing. I mean, maybe this is supposed to happen."

"Don't say that!" Gritted teeth. Set jaw. "I am not. It is not."

"Me neither. I never was. And maybe you're right. Maybe it's not supposed to happen." Soft voice. "But it's happening."

And then a white hand went around a brown wrist and there were only two sets of brown eyes in the room, frightened faces a mirror of each other. The free white hand, big and burly, touched the chin of the frightened face and it shivered. Wanted to shake no. Eyes screaming_no, no, no._ As they closed. As sensation took over. As sensitive lips brushed yearning ones.

That's all there was. No great rush into arms. No passionate moment of clarity. Just a kiss. Briefly, tentatively, gone.

**Next: What happens when you give romantic advice to a stark raving loony.**


	4. Chapter 3

**LEGACIES**

by Jennifer Rubio (nee Wand)

_Chapter 3_

Would you believe they didn't talk about it for another two days?

They even went back to their usual hanging-out-in-the-same-room schtick. After Molly's bedtime, every night. Just hanging out. Mohinder typing. Matt cleaning. Or reading, or looking at photographs of crime scenes, or listening to talk radio through headphones. Sometimes pacing. Back and forth behind Mohinder's chair. Mohinder tried not to notice. Tried not to wonder when those hands would come down like giant drumbeats on the back of his chair and it would be Time To Talk again.

He was not getting a lot of work done. He was doing a lot of polishing his glasses and rubbing the bridge of his nose, however. His glasses were very shiny. His nose was starting to get bruised.

It seemed to be a specialty of Matt's, unsettling him. Because after those two days, when he finally thought they would be able to go on and forget about it, the big hands came down.

"Aren't we going to talk about this?"

He turned. The broad frame of him, shoulders over elbows over the back of his chair, was all too near. "Talk about what?"

He blushed like a junior high school student. "You know. What happened."

Mohinder turned back, pushed his glasses up on his nose for the thirteenth time. "I don't see what there is to talk about," he said clinically. "You obviously regret it, and I don't see any problem with simply forgetting about it. We all make mistakes in life."

This had its intended effect. Matt recoiled as if in shock. Mohinder sighed resolutely and resumed typing.

Then the hands were down again and this time they were on Mohinder's _shoulders._ It was all warmth seeping down into him from such hot hands and Mohinder had chills all at once. And Matt's voice was almost right in his ear. "All I know is, I am lying in my room at night and all I can think of is that. That moment. That..." A little stutter. "That k-kiss. And I don't know what to make of it."

Mohinder almost threw a prayer of thanks to the gods when Matt released him, suddenly pacing back toward the opposite wall. "And here's the thing that really drives me nuts," he said. "If it were anybody else, if I were having any other problem, guess who I'd want to talk about it with? You've become my go-to guy for everything. I want to ask _your_ advice on what the hell is going on with _you_. So I'm up a creek here. I don't know who else to talk to. What do I do about this?" Mohinder hadn't realized it until just now, but he'd stood up and turned. Matt had about-faced as well, and was staring him down plaintively. "How do I figure this out?"

Was he actually asking as if Mohinder had an _answer?_ He shook his head. "I can't afford this," he snapped. "This is not who I am. I am not a family man. I'm certainly not a-- a--"

Matt nodded. A thankful respite. The words didn't need to be said.

"I am an academic. A researcher. My work is important, and I can't afford distractions or interruptions, much less a crisis of identity, which is what this is threatening to become. So leave it alone, Matt." Words like daggers. "Just leave it alone."

He sat back down. His back felt stiff and his joints ached, like he was coming down with the flu. Matt sat as well, putting his headphones back on, but he could feel the eyes boring into him like twin drills.

An hour. An hour passed like a few seconds like this. With heat on his skull and ice in his mind. Just being stared at.

When he heard Matt shift, remove the headphones, and rise, he stiffened.

But "G'night" was all he said as he stalked off to his bedroom.

Mohinder tried to ignore the sudden itching in the soles of his feet. It was almost as if.. _don't think it!_ ...as if he wanted to follow him.

* * *

"Oh, God," Mohinder said, putting his head in his hands. He couldn't concentrate on work. The blobs on the slide looked like nothing but blobs to him. He knew he should be writing down their approximate size and the texture of the cell walls, but he kept thinking about Matt. The hands. The look. The terse "g'night" and stiff shoulders. Somehow the memory of that stung.

He was at an utter loss. What was he supposed to do in this bizarre limbo they'd landed in? "Oh, God," he repeated.

"He's not here right now. Can I take a message?"

He bolted upright. "Elle, for the love of all that is holy, can you please knock?"

"First with the God, then with the holy. I thought you were an atheist!" She sauntered in like a queen across a red carpet, declaring her ownership of the room inch by inch. "So what's eating you, doc? You're hitting the higher powers pretty hard for this early in the morning."

"Nothing is eating me, I'm just... frustrated, that's all."

"Uh-huh. Defined by many as being eaten." She snapped her jaw. "You want me to demonstrate?" She tossed a spark to Mohinder's shirtsleeve, and he jumped at the static pop.

"Ouch..." He sighed. "Look, quite frankly? My personal life is my business, and I'd just as soon not discuss it with you."

"Suit yourself, then," she shrugged, dragging a stool up to the table and plunking herself down on it. She perched her head on her upturned palms and waited for him to get annoyed.

He ignored her deliberately despite her creeping Cheshire-cat grin. After a few minutes, it faded, and she began sending little charges leaping across the table. "Tell me!" she whispered as he jumped back. The microscope slide rattled in its tray.

"What?" he finally demanded. "What do you want to know?"

"You look upset," she said, giving him a mocking pout. "Let me help."

"I do my best not to ask advice of sociopaths, thank you very much."

"Now _I'm_ upset!" she said, shoving him with a stronger shock. He cursed; part of his shirt was singed. "C'mon, Doctor S. You're awfully cute when you're pouty. Tell Auntie Elle all about it."

"If you're my aunt, I do so hope I'm adopted," he muttered.

She walked right up to him, looked up his neck into his face. She was pressing her body into his suggestively. "Elle, please stop that."

"Too hot to handle?" she giggled.

He slammed his hands into her shoulders and pushed her away firmly, cursing as the static crackled against his hand. "I feel sorry for you," he said, his jaw set. "You don't even know what you're doing."

"Sure I do!" She tried to approach him again.

He shook his head, firmly enough that she knew to stay back. "No, you really don't," he sighed.

She looked at him circumspectly. "Well, then tell me. What am I doing?"

"You're trying to be altruistic, I think," he shrugged, looking back at the slides. His eyes pressed into the microscope, he kept talking, looking at but not seeing the jumping cells before his eyes. "I assume you think you can provide me with some comfort."

Elle was silent for a moment. "Can't I?" she said innocently. The question of a girl who really didn't know the answer. There was a quiver in her voice.

Mohinder looked up, decided the slide was a lost cause, put it in the sink, and walked over to her. "I'm afraid you can't," he said. "As far as I can tell, you simply don't have the maturity to understand relationships."

"I HAVE had boyfriends, you know," she said, bristling. "And not crappy ones, either."

He sort of wanted to ask how many of them were still alive, but he restrained himself. "I'm sure. But there is a difference between having a boyfriend..." he blushed, and hastily added, "...or girlfriend... and having a real relationship. Not that I'm a terrible genius at it myself. As I seem to be proving." He ran a hand through his hair and promptly got a shock-- some of the static from earlier was apparently still leaping around. He put a hand on the sink to ground himself.

"What's the difference?" Again with the innocent voice.

He leaned against the counter wearily. "The difference?"

"Between a boyfriend and a relationship."

"Well," he started, regarding her thoughtfully, "For example. What happened to your previous... encounters?"

"Most of 'em? They pissed me off, so I ditched 'em." She shrugged. He wondered sardonically where the ditches were.

"Did you miss them when they were gone?" She shrugged again, shaking her head. "Ah," he said. "That's what I'm talking about. A relationship means you can be hurt and move on, move forward with someone. Not just say 'That's it, it's over.'"

"Why?" she asked. "The way I figure it, who could be so great that he's worth just saying 'Go ahead, hurt me'? I can't imagine..."

"Exactly," he explained. "It's a power play for you. The minute someone does something to hurt you, you just hurt back. If you ever meet someone you really care for, you're going to destroy him, because it will scare the devil out of you to realize that you can either have power or passion, but not both."

She was gazing at him very seriously now. "What do you mean? Why not?" Her look was so confused.

"Because caring about someone means being scared. It means having no control over what happens to your heart," he explained. "Because you have to open yourself up to get hurt. But as for you, you're the sort of person who will hurt someone before they hurt you, so you'll never give anyone the chance to get close to you."

"And you would?"

The innocence with which she asked the question nearly killed him. What a sad girl she was, really, he thought. Might she really go through her life not understanding that she couldn't just take what she wanted? Someday she'd be hit with an emotion that she wouldn't understand, and when that happened, she'd be so lost. She might shut herself off and deny it. She might lash out and destroy it. But he hoped, for her sake, that she learned to embrace it.

"Yes," he said quietly. "I would. I... I think it's worth it."

"Then," she said, grinning, "that solves your problem, doesn't it?"

His jaw dropped. He stared at her.

There were two options here. Either Elle was, for all her cool and shallow facade, a remarkably insightful person, or she was a complete stark raving loony.

Mohinder decided the loony option was much more plausible. Or, at least, more comforting.

* * *

Maya was waiting in the kitchen for his return. She and Molly had prepared dinner, and they were chatting animatedly at the table. Mohinder waved sunnily, but he felt disappointment swell inside him. It wasn't the face he was expecting to see. As much as he was dreading seeing that face, dreading the awkward silences and cursory words, at least he had been expecting it. He felt like the rhythm of his day had been unforgivably interrupted. Irritation rippled through him, and he fought it down, greeting her extra warmly to make up for any residual hostility he might be showing.

"I wanted to ask you today about what I do," she said after dinner, when Molly had retreated to her bedroom, excited about playing her new video game. "Is it very different from what Miss Bishop can do? Or do you think it is the same?"

It took him a moment to realize he was talking about Elle. "Well, you share a genetic marker," he said. "The manifestation of the abnormality is very different, however."

"How is it different?" she asked.

The question flummoxed him. "I.. I'd think that would be obvious. She has the ability to conduct and generate electricity, whereas you have a sort of pheromone or poison that you seem to emit..."

"No, not that," Maya interrupted. "I mean... let me start again." She thought for a moment. "Miss Bishop does her power... through her hands, no?" Mohinder nodded. "Does mine come through my eyes? Because my eyes change."

"That is a good question," he said. "Yes, I'd say that is very possible."

"But it is not just people I look at. It is everyone around me that is... killed." Her lip curled in disgust. "But Miss Bishop can... what is the word? Target."

Mohinder remembered his first exposure to Elle's power, in California. He shuddered slightly. "Yes."

Maya leaned forward. "Why can I not target too?"

For a moment he just stared at her. Was her interest in this purely academic? "I don't know that you can't," he said finally. "It may be a matter of learning appropriate control. Of course, it may also be the case that what you do cannot be targeted. If it's a pheromone, perhaps it is carried on the air."

She nodded. "But maybe I could learn how to..."

"Maya!" The loudness of his voice shocked even him. He found himself standing, leaning over the table, gaping at her. "I thought you wanted to be rid of this! I thought you _were_ rid of this." He shook his head and sat again. "The medication you're taking is still neutralizing your ability. So why are you asking these questions?"

She hung her head. "I'm sorry. I was just... curious. I'm sorry."

"Maya." He said her name with purpose, leaning forward intently. "Have you been going back there?"

There was no question what _there_ meant. Her eyes went round and white. She shook her head wildly. "No, I am not... I ..."

He rose, took her hands, trying to force her to look him in the eye. "What is it?"

She burst into tears. "I cannot talk to you about it. I was told not to talk to you!"

**Next: I like you.**


	5. Chapter 4

**LEGACIES**

by Jennifer Rubio (nee Wand)

_Chapter 4_

Matt had a hard day that day. Well, the best days were hard. That was life as a cop, and it was the life he chose. He didn't choose, however, to hear Andrews recounting every noise the stripper had made in the back alley last night after the show. Or to hear Fuller thinking _Ugh, slacker_ every time he walked by Matt's desk. Nor did he choose to have his car get a flat. Or to spill coffee on his freshly laundered shirt.

The worst part of all of this was, he wasn't sure what he had to come home to. He'd just been getting used to having a friend there to talk to, and then this _thing_ had had to crop up and mess everything up. Last night was an endless loop playing in his head. What Mohinder had said about not being a family man hurt worst of all. He'd really thought they had their priorities in the right place. They were bringing up Molly together, and he figured that made them almost family. He'd pinned his hopes, his sanity on it. But he was still just a roommate, and now he was a roommate who had done something supremely stupid, to boot. And Mohinder didn't feel a thing for him. Not that he knew what he expected Mohinder to feel. Nor did he really know, at this point, what he felt for Mohinder. He just knew that whatever it was, it was making his life just plain suck.

So it was with some trepidation that he trudged up the stairs that night. Did he even want to go home? It was so late that he would end up just peeking at Molly from the crack in her bedroom door. Then there'd probably be some words, cursory and halfhearted, with Mohinder, and then bed. Hardly worth the price of admission. But the coffee stain would set if he didn't wash the shirt, and police uniforms were expensive when you had to replace them. So up the stairs he went.

He stopped when the whisper of thought reached him. It was translating rapidly from a blur of unintelligible Spanish to English, then from English back to Spanish again. It took him a moment to realize that he was hearing, through one mind, both sides of a conversation.

_Como se dice... You were right. He asked, like you said he would._

_My mistake... I was... walking around with... file. Don't worry, chiquita. You told him the right story?_

_I got... a little upset._

_...You __**didn't.**_

A flash of irritation just short of anger made Matt's lip curl. He stood outside the apartment door and listened.

* * *

Mohinder had dropped the subject of Maya's visit to the Company after her outburst. He knew one thing: whatever she'd been doing there was disturbing her, and he'd just as soon not punch her buttons. Not to mention that he didn't trust himself right now to hit the right ones.

He'd put a kettle on and left her in the kitchen to get herself settled as he tucked Molly into bed. When he emerged, he heard her voice. It took him a moment to realize she was on the phone.

"No," she was saying, "I didn't. But I don't know what I said."

She was talking in English. He felt a little lift of hope. Perhaps she'd found a friend at work. It was just what she needed.

"Yes, I will. I... have to go now." She looked up, saw him there. For a split second, a ghost of panic fluttered over her face. But then she gave a pleasant smile and snapped her phone shut, and he wondered if he'd just imagined it.

"I was thinking that I wish you could have met my brother, Doctor," she said a few minutes later, as she accepted a freshly brewed cup of tea. "I know he would have liked to meet you."

"Alejandro, was that his name? Yes, from what you tell me he cared about you quite a bit."

"Alejandro was my salvation," she said soberly, sniffing the steam. "He helped me control my power before I knew how to do so myself. I look back now and think I was so foolish, that I could have thought my guardian angel fell from the sky, when he was truly with me all the time. From the start I did nothing but betray Alejandro, and yet I feel he would not blame me. He was so very forgiving and good to me."

Her eyes were sad, and Mohinder felt a sting of pity. He thought back to the _other_ fool who'd traveled across the country in a small car with a stranger who was not what he appeared. He wished he'd had someone there talking sense to him at that point, too. Even if he might not have listened.

It occurred to him that Matt might have been the ideal voice of sense. He pushed the thought to the back of his mind. It had nothing to do with Matt's unwavering sense of justice or his firm resolve. It was just that having a mind-reader might have been helpful in discerning Sylar's true identity and purpose. That was all. Anyway, what did it matter? It was long gone now. That chance had passed.

"Your brother survived several manifestations of your ability," Mohinder murmured. "You told me he was killed by Sylar, correct?" Maya nodded. "And you say he never suffered under the effects of the pheromone you emitted. His eyes never turned black, for example."

"No, that's not true," Maya said. "Not much."

"What do you mean, not much?" He leaned forward, interested.

"When it... would happen," she explained reluctantly, shifting the hot mug between her two hands, "Alejandro would find me, and when... when he would touch my hands, his eyes became dark like mine. But he could breathe, and then I could breathe again. And then our eyes would clear... and then everyone was all right."

"That's odd." Mohinder's brow furrowed, and he took a long sip of his drink. "So he was able to neutralize the effect of the pheromone?"

Maya took a moment to translate the sentence in her mind, and when she had, she was shocked. "You mean my brother was... like me?"

"No, on second thought, that doesn't work out," he scowled. "Because you were able to control yourself after some practice, and Molly and I both survived long after your brother was gone. So whatever pheromone you were emitting, you also were able to emit the antidote."

She looked disgusted. "I really don't like to talk about this."

He reached across the table, clasped one of her hands in a gesture of supplication. "I'm sorry. May I just ask one more question? And then I promise I will leave off for the evening. I promise."

Her face softened. "Yes, of course." She drew the mug to her lips with her free hand and turned her palm to clutch his. "I will try to answer."

"Did anyone ever survive?"

"What?"

Mohinder knew he was being imprudent, but something about this piqued his interest. "Was there anyone, besides your brother, who ever survived one of your..." He waved his hand. "If he wasn't there. Before you learned to control it."

She shifted uncomfortably. "Once."

"Just once?"

"Everyone else died," she said, looking down. "But he did not. He was just one man. Stronger than the others, perhaps. He looked like all the others. But he just... did not die. He kept breathing and moving... If the boat had not been there, we might..."

The teacup rattled in her hand, and they realized at the same time that she was shaking.

"I'm sorry," Mohinder said quickly. "Finish your tea. I won't ask you anything else."

Feeling horribly guilty, he withdrew his hand. Maya looked away, a blush creeping up her neck beneath her tanned skin. Her face was serious. "Doctor?"

"Yes?"

Her eyes fluttered upward to catch his. "Do you think Alejandro would forgive me?"

The light caught and shimmered in the dark bulbs of her eyes. He smiled softly, feeling he was in the presence of a kindred spirit. "I often wonder if my sister would have forgiven me for living, although she died," he said. "The tragedy of premature death is that we seldom know what they would have bequeathed to us had they known. In the end, the legacies of our brothers and sisters are not offered by them but chosen by us. Much like destiny."

"Doctor Suresh, you are like a poet," she said in a tone of awe.

"Oh..." He realized he'd been rambling. "I'm sorry."

"No," she replied. "It was beautiful."

"Well. Thank you, I suppose."

At this point, Matt crashed through the doorway and stomped to his room without even saying hello. A moment later, he was on his way out again, wearing a different shirt, the stained one folded under one arm, the box of detergent under the other. He was frowning.

* * *

After Maya had wisely taken Matt's sudden, grumpy appearance to be the get-the-hell-out it probably was, Mohinder sat at the table for a long time, sipping tea and thinking. There'd been a hell of a lot of information thrown his way today. Elle's foolishness, Maya's frighteningly perceptive questions... and now he was struck by a strange nostalgia. He found himself wishing Shanti had lived, had grown up. What advice might a sister have given him in this situation? He could use one.

She would have been a few years older than him. Approaching forty, at this point. He tried to imagine her, married, a few children, skinny like everyone in their family was, with a brilliant, beaming smile. Perhaps she was married to an American and lived here. Mohinder imagined he could walk to her house from here. He imagined she'd make chai and they'd sit up until long hours discussing everything from politics to personal troubles. He imagined she would be the one person he could tell about what had happened with Matt.

Then, unexpectedly, his dream sister gave him a pointed look. "Was it a nice kiss?"

He spit out his tea in both the reality and the dream. "I don't know! What does it matter?"

"Well, that is usually one of the criteria in deciding whether to move forward," she shrugged.

Mohinder frowned. His imagination was not supposed to tell him things he didn't want to hear. Even his mind was persecuting him. "Are you suggesting that I actually pursue a relationship with that man? With _a_ man? That in itself is patently absurd!"

"Mohinder." She flipped the "r" still. In his dream world, she had not had the overseas education that allowed him to float in and out of Indian pronunciation patterns. It was deeply ingrained in her. She was a piece of home. "You are the one who just said that, not I."

"I am not a homosexual!" he burst out.

"And before I had Chandra, I was not a mother," she said, her eyes darting to the picture of her eldest son on the countertop. "We are the sum of our experiences, little brother. They define us; we do not define them."

Mohinder sighed. He was being foolish. Was he so bigoted that he had to imagine a dead sister back to life in order to find an environment in which he could even say those words? No. It wasn't that he found it morally wrong. He was well aware that there was a place in nature for homosexuality as there was for almost every other incongruity that marked a species. But it was the sort of thing that he didn't have time for. His life was about efficiencies, statistics, probable outcomes, and he was aware enough of the world's prejudices to know to avoid most of the unsuccessful ones. He did not bother with buying lottery tickets, and he did not want to bother with worrying about his sexual identity. Some chances were just not worth taking.

"It's not even a question of whether I am or not, at this point," he said despondently. "It's a matter of having to live with this man, day in and day out, and know that something happened between us that is so far beyond the bounds of propriety that I don't even know whether to talk about it."

"Always talk, Mohinder," she said, her lean face bright. "You'll never learn anything if you don't at least talk about it. You might learn something you don't want to know, but at least you won't be ignorant anymore. Isn't that the way of a true scientist? To always ask the hard questions and follow the evidence, no matter where it leads?"

"Sounds more like the way of a true detective," he answered.

"It's both," Shanti said. "Do you suppose that is a sign?"

* * *

Mohinder appeared in Matt's doorway a few minutes after he'd returned from the laundry room. "So, we should talk," he said.

Matt looked up. He was seated on the bed, folding his newly washed shirt. At Mohinder's appearance, though, the garment fluttered to the floor, forgotten. "We should?" Matt said, blinking.

"I think so, yes."

"Sit down." Matt scooted to the side. Mohinder looked suspiciously at the space he'd created. Side by side on his bed, having _that_ conversation? But what other choice did he have? The room was like a prison cell. Bed, chest of drawers, mirror, small window too high up to look out from.

He came in out of the hall. The flood of light behind him waned and died as he shut the door. He sat down. They didn't look at each other.

"So."

"So."

In this context, Mohinder thought, the word didn't mean _so._ It meant_you talk first._

"So what do we do now?" he finally asked.

"What do _you_ think?" shrugged Matt. He was staring straight ahead, eyes dissecting a crack in the wall. Mohinder could tell this only out of the corner of his eye, as he was staring at the same crack. It was a wonder it didn't crumble.

"I think... we should consider our options." The minute he said, it, he regretted it. He didn't want to consider_all_ of them. "In my view, our best possible outcome is if we are somehow able to maintain the status quo, keep living here just as we have with no ch--"

By the word _just_ he was aware of a hand on his chin. By _with_ he knew his face was being tilted upwards. And _change_ was choked off by Matt's mouth on his. It was a brief, hot, possessive kiss. Mohinder's brain melted a little.

"Why did you do that?" he demanded once his mouth was his own again. To his chagrin, he couldn't tear his eyes off Matt's face.

"I wanted to."

"_You_ wanted to? What about _me_?"

"Sorry." He actually looked sheepish. "I just... you didn't want to?"

"No! I mean, I don't know." He ran his fingers through his hair, looked down at his shoes before his eyes were drawn almost magnetically back to Matt's. The expression on his face was so unassuming, so... innocently confused. It made him ache a little and want to smile despite himself.

"I guess I'm, uh, disappointed a little to hear that," Matt said with a sigh. "I mean, you can say that you wish nothing had happened, but the fact is, I kissed you. We kissed. Twice, now," he added with a stifled chuckle. "That's not nothing."

"No," agreed Mohinder soberly, "it's not." Their eyes still would not let go. When Mohinder became aware of their helplessness, his toes curled slightly inside his shoes.

"That's what I thought. And I kept trying to remember what it felt like, and I just... I had to remember." Matt's face was red. "Sorry if it was-- not what you wanted." If it hadn't been for the eye contact, maybe he would have stopped there. Changed the subject. Walked away. Any of the panicky things those eyes seemed to be screaming for him to do. But they were locked into the gaze, and that meant no escape. "B... but I keep thinking it is. What you want. I keep getting that feeling." He leaned forward. Just a hair. Just enough to make Mohinder's breath catch. "Is it?"

Mohinder cursed himself before he drew the breath, cursed himself as he said the words, cursed himself as he heard them fade into silence. "Yes," he whispered. "I want it very much. And that is terrifying."

His stomach was turning, but his eyelids were drooping, and Matt's hand was on his face again. They both leaned in this time, and the kiss was spine-curlingly good, strong and fierce and needy. Mohinder groaned and pushed himself closer. Matt tangled the fingers of one hand in his hair, slipping the other around his waist. He could hear the disjointed babble of Mohinder's mind.

_So strong... hot...  
shouldn't want...  
so wrong...  
Oh God, oh no...  
I can't...  
have to...  
let go..._

And then all at once, like springs that had been pulled to their limits, they snapped back, stared at each other. Then Matt's gaze flickered downward, and Mohinder gulped at the recognition of what he must be looking at.

"I'm sorry," he began to say. Matt just kept staring, as though he'd just realized the natural next step of the path he'd been pursuing. It seemed to sober him somewhat. Maybe it'd be enough to knock some sense into him? Sense that Mohinder himself seemed to be sadly lacking, as he could only look at Matt's downcast eyes and trembling lips and remember how that kiss had melted on his mouth like hot brown sugar and cinnamon?

Then Matt gave a shaky little laugh. He lifted a hand to his mouth, chortled a little. Slapped his forehead against his palm. Leaned back, looked up at the ceiling. His mouth spread into a wide grin, and he kept letting out odd, shaky chuckles. "Shit!" he exclaimed. "Oh, wow. Oh, my God, unbelievable."

Mohinder didn't know what was so funny. He was a little afraid to ask. Part of him was still working through the fact that Matt had kissed him and he'd actually kissed back. He hadn't even arrived at the current moment.

Matt's hands flew into the air, making wild sweeps. "Oh, my God!" he said, still radiating whatever emotion it was he seemed saturated with. "Oh, my God, Mohinder! I'm... Do... Do you know what this _is_?"

_Not a clue,_ Mohinder thought dully. _Not even the beginning of a clue._

"I was jealous!" Matt exclaimed. "She's here all the time and she's kind of attractive, and it was annoying the hell out of me. And I just figured it out. I was jealous! Doesn't that just blow your mind?"

"I... don't understand," Mohinder said slowly. His hands were white and trembling on the edge of the bed.

"OK, here's the thing." Matt's eyes were dancing. "I _like_ you."

Mohinder just blinked.

"Like, as in, I really like you," Matt went on. "I want... I want to take you out on a _date_. I want to kiss you. I want to hold your hand in the movie theater." His words were effervescent. He was glowing. "I want that girl sleeping in the other room to be _our_ daughter. I want to see you there in the morning when she's getting ready for school. I want..." His voice dropped. "I want to fall in love with you. I even kind of want to have sex with you, even though I have no idea what _that's_ going to be like. But here's the thing-- it doesn't matter, because I want it. With you. I want you. I like you. God, that just about blows my mind."

Mohinder stared at him in disbelief. How was it possible that he could find that concept such a simple one? Did he really think this was going to be all puppies and rainbows? He was giddy, like a ten-year-old with his first crush. No thought, no worries about the implications of it all. The roommate part. The man part. The daughter part. The superhuman powers part. The secret operative of an amoral, extralegal Company part. None of that seemed to register with him.

But wait, it got worse. All of that stuff was slowly losing its potency with Mohinder, too. He found himself all too quickly able to dismiss each piece of it. Things were actually starting to look as absurdly simple as Matt seemed to think they were.

He did the only thing he could think to do. He leaned forward into Matt's arms.

He grabbed at his shirt with wildly shaking fists, pulled Matt's ear down to nearly meet his lips. "I'm frightened," he whispered, letting his chin land on that warm, broad shoulder. "This is so frightening. I'm so frightened."

Like heavy drapes closing, the big arms wrapped around him. He was in a cocoon of warmth, clinging to him, trembling. He felt lips brush his cheek, his hairline. "Me too," Matt said in a low, ardent smoke trail of a tone. "Me too. I'm scared to death. I haven't felt anything like this in years." The hands were flat and warm at the small of Mohinder's back. "Look, whatever happens, I'll be here, OK? I promise you. I'll be here."

And somehow that was all the comfort Mohinder could possibly ask for.

**Next: Strange days and stranger alliances**


	6. Chapter 5

**LEGACIES**

by Jennifer Rubio (nee Wand)

_Chapter 5_

When Matt came sleepily out of his room the following morning, he yawned good morning to Molly, but stopped, blinked, and smiled before shyly repeating the words to Mohinder. He answered in kind, also shyly, looking up at Matt from beneath nervously fluttering lashes.

"Did you, uh, sleep OK?" Matt asked, eyes darting between Mohinder's and the floor.

"Yes." Mohinder laughed a little. "Thank... you for asking."

"What are you two laughing about?" Molly demanded from the table, her spoon clutched in one fist insistently.

"Nothing," growled Matt, suddenly his cranky morning self again. "We saw a funny movie last night. Eat your cereal." He stuck out his tongue at her. Mohinder laughed. The awkwardness persisted until, on Matt's way out to drop her off at school, he lagged behind. For a moment he wavered, then iron glinted in his eyes and he leaned forward to plant a soft kiss on the corner of Mohinder's mouth. "It's OK," he said, looking at him seriously. "We're doing fine."

"How can you be so sure?" Mohinder asked, his cheeks pink with the sensation.

"I'm not," admitted Matt, his tone light but his face serious. "I'm just hoping if I say it enough I'll convince both of us." He half-smiled and left the apartment. Mohinder's heart made a noise like butterfly wings. He clutched his chest and fell to his knees. And it scared him even more to realize he was smiling.

* * *

A handful of tasks required Mohinder to shuttle himself back and forth between the midtown location of his laboratory and the Brooklyn outpost of the Company that day. He preferred work in the lab-- although he knew he was being watched, his supervisor had to fight traffic or board the subway in order to actually chase him down. It wasn't something a guy like Bob had the time or energy to do. 

Of course, his flighty daughter wasn't nearly as busy. "Gooooood morning, Doctor S!" she chirped at eleven a.m. "Broughtcha a scone! You're a scone kind of guy, I can tell."

And he was, at that. Rather pleasantly surprised, he turned to smile amiably at her. "Thank you," he said, "and good morning."

She looked surprised, but then smiled and settled in. "So how are you? How's your boyfriend?"

"Fine and fine..." It took a moment for Mohinder to jump into full panic mode. Had he just said that so easily? And why wasn't he asking "What did you say?" Why was his mouth moving without his mind and asking, "How did you know?"

"Scientific deduction," she said, winking and smiling broadly. "Number One: you didn't look at Niki and you don't look at me. Number Two: you're too handsome to be asexual. Number Three: you are waaaay too happy today."

His hands flew to his face. He could feel the hotness even before making contact.

Elle just shrugged, amused at the reaction. "We all figured it was a matter of time before you and your roommate shacked up. So when was the blessed event?"

Mohinder found his tongue again. "We're not shacking up! For God's sake." He buried his head in his hands. "We've barely touched. We don't even know what's going on."

"But you like it, right?"

He peeked from between his fingers. "Yes," he admitted.

"So when was it? Come on, the office pool's up to, like, twenty bucks." She squealed and ran for the door, not even sticking around for the answer.

* * *

The pleasant butterflies in his stomach turned to wasps as the day wore on, however, and that night Mohinder felt like he was stepping into a minefield when he got home. How they managed to put on a normal front for Molly's sake was anybody's guess, because the doomsday clock was ticking down toward her bedtime. At that magic hour, all the pretenses of nothing having changed would be gone, and they would be two regular people alone together. Mohinder tried to envision what would happen once that light clicked off and that door shut. He couldn't. His mind was blank, like someone had turned off the lights in there, too.

So he decided to pretend he hadn't noticed when Matt emerged from her bedroom. He figured Matt was the one who wanted this enough to make the first move, so he'd want it enough to make the second. If he hadn't regained his sense and decided this had all been a big mistake. Mohinder buried his nose in a book and waited.

The running of water. Matt was doing the dishes. Doing the dishes? While Mohinder was in hell? Then again, the dishes did need to be done. Mohinder peered over the edge of his book and stared at him.

From Mohinder's vantage point on the couch, Matt was a pleasing blur of motion. Something solid and heavy seemed to hover around him. If he were a home, he would be red brick with oak doors. Something familiar and traditional. Not avant-garde, perhaps, but beautiful nonetheless. Mohinder found himself wanting a better look. He stood and walked toward the kitchen.

His bare feet were silent on the tile, not that it mattered. Matt was running the water anyway, and humming "Stairway to Heaven" under his breath. His voice lilted and lapsed with the in-and-out of his breaths. Mohinder's eyes traveled along the line of his jaw, set in concentration. His fingers itched as though feeling the gravelly scrape of stubble on his chin.

Was this what it felt like to be attracted to a man? Was it about feeling he was very touchable? Was it wondering about textures and surfaces he'd never laid hands on before? How different from attraction to women it was. Or wasn't it? Mohinder couldn't remember the last time he'd looked at a woman. His life had no room for that. Romantic attraction involved an effort he didn't have the energy to make. And yet this was completely organic. Completely natural. Instinctive, nearly to the point of being unconscious. So much so that he didn't realize he'd walked right over to stand next to him, staring into his face mutely, until Matt turned off the water and turned to him, his hands dripping wet.

On instinct still, Mohinder reached up and touched that chin, with the scratchy stubble. Matt's eyes went dark. All expression left his face. Mohinder realized Matt was looking at his mouth. A word trembled on the edge of his lips, but he didn't know what it was. He wondered confusedly if Matt could see it. His heart was hammering. A wet hand found his outstretched one, dampening the cheek he touched.

Mohinder shivered and looked at him through wide eyes, as though he'd just awoken and discovered he'd been sleepwalking.

They kissed. Just once. Briefly.

"H-how was your day?" Matt asked in a voice that was just barely a croak of a whisper. His voice caught and flew up to soprano on the last syllable. Mohinder smiled. They both grinned. "I sounded totally stupid just now." It was a statement, not a question.

Mohinder nodded. "Sort of."

"Sorry."

"We're doing fine, right?" Mohinder thought wildly to himself that his voice sounded so weak.

"Yeah. Yeah. Thanks for the reminder." Matt wiped his hands on a towel and walked over to the couch. "So, uh, you want to watch some TV or something?" Mohinder couldn't answer before Matt slapped his fist to his forehead. "That sounds lame too. Oh, God, I'm just hopelessly lame tonight."

It was the most casual, the most honest Mohinder had ever seen him. He looked nervous. He looked human. Mohinder felt a flood of warmth. He walked over and, taking a deep and very long breath, sat next to him and took his hand.

Matt turned red up to his scalp.

"TV sounds all right," Mohinder said.

* * *

The days that followed were strange, but pleasant. In the evenings, they had dinner as a family, and when Molly was in bed they sat on the couch and talked, sharing bits of their childhood and their lives before a little girl who could find people dropped into it and changed everything. Matt talked about tough cases he'd been on and how his marriage had begun and ended; Mohinder explained how he'd come to New York in search of his father's legacy. The nights always ended with some kissing and exploration; they learned how to cuddle, which was utterly bizarre because, as Matt said, "I'm not sure if we should take turns being the girl, or what." The same thought occurred to both of them when he made that comment, and they blushed and spent the rest of the night on opposite ends of the couch. 

They didn't sleep together. It was too new and raw a thing for both of them to even know how. Mohinder bought a book on the sly, hoping to gain some know-how; he managed to read part of it at work without revealing its contents to an increasingly intrusive Elle.

Mohinder was getting sick of her constant questions, which sometimes bordered on the obscene. One morning he decided to head toward Brooklyn at a time he knew she'd assume him to be at the lab. He hoped to throw her off, to strand her on the street waiting for him to show up. Instead, he was the one who was surprised at whom he saw waiting in the hallway outside one of the cavernous research rooms.

"Maya."

Her mouth was open even before she turned. "I am here to get my medication," she blurted out, as though he'd cornered her at gunpoint rather than just saying her name.

"I.. I'm sure," he said, recoiling. "How are you?"

She looked sheepish. "Good. How are you, Doctor?" She paused, adding shyly, "You look... happy."

Mohinder pinked. She was the second person to say as much. Was he acting that much like a schoolboy with a crush? It was embarrassing to think about. "I. Well. I'm happy to see you." Not entirely a lie, he told himself as she grinned, pleased.

Then the voice came like a siren. "Maaaaayaaa! I'm commmmiin'!" The click-clack of heels on the linoleum sped their way toward them. Elle came into view, skidded to a halt like a cartoon character, and gaped a moment before recovering. "...Oh, Doctor S, wassap? Thought you were at the lab today." She glared at Maya, who responded with a glassy-eyed, pleading stare.

Mohinder watched the silent conversation between the two of them unfold. How he envied the power to read thoughts at a time like this. "You two are...?"

Maya turned back to face him, her mouth opening and closing several times. Mohinder was reminded of Japanese carp at feeding time. "Ah," she started nervously, "Miss Bishop is... we are..."

His amusement was giving way to suspicion. "You are...?"

"Buddies." Elle grabbed Maya by both shoulders, hugging her and rubbing their cheeks together, grinning. "Yeah. Gal pals. That's us. We kinda clicked back in detox, you know? We went shopping the other day. When was it? Sunday. Yeah, Sunday. Went shopping, bought tons of stuff, ended up sacking out on the couch watching 'Lost' all night. You ever see that show? Weird stuff. You'd like it."

The last hint of amusement had gone. "Well, that's very good, then," Mohinder said coldly. "For both of you. I'm glad." He turned and stomped away.

* * *

It was not the last time that day he'd see either of them. 

The visit from Elle came first, if you can call it a visit when you're followed halfway across the city. She didn't have to say a word for him to know she was there. She was not so good at tracking people subtly, especially tracking people all the way into Manhattan, including short-circuiting the turnstile so she didn't have to pay subway fare. With the first footstep into the loft-turned-lab, he took a deep breath and spoke before she could. "You're lying."

Her clicking heels stopped, and he heard her swallow. Finally, she started walking again, sidling up to his desk, where he sat, making notes. "Am not," she said casually, grinning. "What would I be lying about?"

"Maya was at my place on Sunday evening," he said.

She elbowed him, throwing a spark into the mix just for fun. "Why Doctor S, you big tease, I thought you weren't shopping in that aisle!" She put hands on his shoulders, leaning over him and flashing a sunny smile in his face. "Does this mean there's a chance for me?"

"No, it means you're lying." He stood up, knocking her backward, and scowled. "What are you two up to?"

"Nothing!" she scoffed rebelliously. "We're up to nothing. A big fat zero." She held up her hands in a bubble shape, letting a spark jump along the lines of the ring.

"Does your father know what you're doing?"

All movement stopped. The spark flew into the air and disappeared with a pop. Elle looked for a moment like she was going to fall down. He had a sudden urge to run over and catch her if she did.

She ran to him and grabbed his sleeve, looking up at him with panicked eyes. He'd never seen her so desperate. "Doctor S, please," she begged. She was like a paper doll of herself, willowy and wavering against him, her face pale. "Please. Don't say anything to Daddy. I'm begging you."

He stared at her a long moment. She'd never begged before in her life, he was sure. Her hands on his sleeve were whiter than noon sunlight.

This is why he'd invited her to come to the lab, after all. This was the opportunity he'd been waiting for. Elle, caught being sloppy. Desperate and vulnerable and willing to tell him anything he wanted to know. He could demand she level with him, or he'd go to Bob with the news that his daughter was sneaking around. He could find out the truth, ugly as it may be, and somehow deal with the consequences.

But he was afraid. Too much had happened recently to shake up his world. He was afraid of the bottom dropping out of this part of life, too.

He looked away, shaking her off. "What would I have to tell him, anyway?" he said, walking toward one of his filing cabinets. "I don't know anything."

He heard her step toward him. stop, and fall to her knees on the floor. The sound of skin against concrete made him wince. She whispered weakly to his back.

"Thank you. Thank you."

* * *

It was much later-- after dinner, in fact-- that Maya made her reappearance. He invited her in, poured her a cup of tea, but she held it without taking a sip, her dark lashes fluttering as she gazed at her reflection in the cup, then his. "I want to be honest with you," she said first. 

He wasn't sure he was ready to hear it from her lips, either. But what could he do? He'd given up his first chance at the truth.

"I have been meeting with Miss Bishop," she said. "But you know that."

Vaguely he heard Matt puttering around in the background. Like a jealous lover, he thought, and heard the footsteps falter and a sputtering of breath. He tried not to laugh. "Yes. Yes, I got that impression," he said to Maya.

She took a deep breath. "I wanted to tell you why."

He leaned forward, fighting back the urge to run away.

"It's about Sylar."

He blinked, spilled his own tea. "What?"

"Gabriel. The man you call Sylar." She seemed to have trouble with the name. Of course, she had known him for so long as Gabriel, where Mohinder had only known him by aliases. He beat down the strange jealousy that she'd been allowed a glimpse into his world that he'd never gotten. "Miss Bishop's father was very upset that she allowed him to escape." She set down the mug and shrugged at him plaintively. "She thought that I might help her understand who he is. Because I spent so much time with him. So I am talking with her... so she can catch him."

Mohinder took in a breath and held it. Of course. She'd been with him so long that she really might have some clue as to how he worked. He felt a rush of chagrin at not being the one to realize that. What did Elle know to do with that information? Besides get herself and Maya killed?

Irritation tugged at the corners of his mouth. He paced. Damn that girl and her stupid, devilish schemes! Was she always so eager to drag others down into her sadistic little plots? When he spoke, it was in clipped tones. "That is potentially the most ill-advised..."

"Please." She grabbed his hand, warm from the imprint of the teacup, and he stopped. Her eyes were big licorice-colored marbles. "Don't be angry. You understand? She wants to make her father happy."

It was perhaps the only explanation he couldn't shrug off in a haze of rage. Elle was a foolish young thing, making boneheaded decisions out of some irrational desire to see her father, a cold, distant man with his own agenda, look at her kindly for once. Mohinder could think of another young fool who'd done the same. And had inadvertently brought death to more innocents than he'd imagined he could. Was he any less diabolical than Elle, in the end?

He couldn't help it. A swell of hapless sympathy buoyed the words out of him. "Yes. Of course I do."

* * *

When he'd fastened the chain and turned the deadbolt in her wake, Mohinder leaned against the door and sighed. "What?" he asked. "Just say it." 

"More daddy issues." The voice behind him was a low rumble with a touch of amusement, but Mohinder was not in the mood for humor. It had been a long, tense day, and he was feeling the strain of having all his assumptions challenged. It was not an easy burden to bear.

He turned to him. "Matt, please, don't."

The man put up his hands as though to wave away hostility. "I'm not, I'm not," he said. "I've already told you how I feel."

Mohinder just sighed again. He was well aware of Matt's mistrust of Maya. He thought it was sadly misplaced. If anyone was the villain here, it had to be Elle. "Yes, you have."

"I just--" Matt put a hand on his hip, biting his lip and looking for the words. "I hear what she's thinking sometimes, and it's not what you think."

Mohinder glared. "Don't," he said, flint in his voice.

Matt reached for him. "I just... I want you to know that--"

"I said, don't." It was meant as a forceful push but somehow became a shove. Matt staggered and stared at him incredulously.

"Just because you routinely invade her privacy doesn't mean I need to," Mohinder lectured. "Keep it to yourself." He walked past Matt without looking at him.

"So that's it?" How easy it was to fall into the old patterns. Voices raised, tempers aflame. "You care more about her privacy than..."

"Than what? Than you? I thought you were over being jealous," he scoffed.

"It's not about being jealous. Mohinder!" He was walking past him into the hallway now. Matt turned to follow him. "Why are you acting like this?"

Mohinder stopped for just a moment. There were a lot of answers to that question. Because he was being kept in the dark. Because he was sick of being the only person around with no insight, no special power, no reason to be except for those that surrounded him. Because he could see control of his life slipping away, and the reason for that was currently behind him, staring him down. Because for a while he'd felt happy, and he'd forgotten that he wasn't supposed to be happy. He was supposed to be serious and earnest and always striving for the unknown, and he was losing that day by day to the placid mediocrity of domestic life. Because the man behind him was real and true and brave and strong enough to face up to the truth. And because Mohinder was nothing but a coward.

But he didn't give an answer. He just entered his bedroom and slammed the door behind him.

**Next: Things heat up**


	7. Chapter 6

**LEGACIES**

by Jennifer Rubio (nee Wand)

_Chapter 6_

Mohinder awoke with a headache, as though he'd been drinking. The bright morning was far too much to take. He crossed the room, shut the blinds, and tumbled back into bed. Anything but daylight.

But his mind was racing even in the darkness, and eventually he cursed and sat up again. He'd ruined things, he was sure of it. He'd actually slammed his door on Matt last night. Without saying a word, like a three-year-old. Thank God Molly wasn't up. She'd lecture him on being childish, and that would be too embarrassing to handle.

What a fool he'd been. He should have known better than to dare get involved with Matt to begin with. Isn't this what he was afraid of? Walking on eggshells under his own roof? High drama in what was supposed to be a stable environment for a child? These were the things that happened when one allowed oneself to feel, to be vulnerable. He remembered what his father had said about a true scientist having a heart of stone. He envied the resolve that had allowed him to say that.

There was clanking coming from the kitchen. Running water and singing silverware, and a treble and bass voice. The usual morning music of conversation and preparation. He supposed he'd better face the music himself. He tugged on a bathrobe and trudged out into the hallway.

A smile and a mug of coffee met him at the entrance to the kitchen. The smile from Molly, the coffee from Matt, who leaned forward and muttered, "Not in front of her," before drawing back and grinning "Good morning, sleepyhead," in warm, paternal tones. Mohinder managed a sleepy smile and answered. He didn't even like coffee that much, but anything blacker than his mood promised to make him feel better in comparison.

* * *

He worked at the lab in the morning and took the subway out to Brooklyn after lunch. His mind was still in chaos, and when he climbed the steps into daylight, he found himself staring up blankly at the facade of a Cuban restaurant across from the subway station. The bricks around the entryway were painted with an oversized map of the Caribbean. Each island nation was dotted with a palm tree, putting a cluster of tiny trees in the small islands along the eastward side-- St. Thomas, St. Croix, St. John, Antigua, so many others-- and five fat ones along the larger islands that lay in a wide slab above the windows-- Cuba, Jamaica below it, Haiti and the Dominican Republic like Siamese twins, tiny Puerto Rico. He felt like a lonely, misunderstood island under the thumb of a superpower, too. Then the comparison made him laugh.

"Doctor Suresh!" A familiar voice from across the street. He looked around to see Maya rushing toward him, her face aglow. She was wearing a short-sleeved sundress, and her elbow was bandaged, as though she'd just had a shot.

"Are you all right?" he asked, gesturing toward the bandage.

"Oh! Yes. Nothing. I... was writing a letter home, and I wasn't thinking and my pen was very sharp. It was very stupid," she said, blushing.

"Oh." He felt foolish at the suspicion that had flashed through his mind. "Did you... just come from the office?"

She nodded. "Yes. I'm glad I don't have to lie to you about it anymore." She flashed him a smile. "Do you like this dress, Doctor?" She twirled like a child playing ballet dancer. "It's new. We really did go shopping, you know. She bought me new clothes. My first new clothes in a long time."

"Elle did?" A nod. "It's... very flattering." He looked up at the restaurant's facade again. "Is that home?" he asked, pointing to the right-hand side of the twin palm trees.

She followed his gaze and smiled. "Yes." Her gaze was nostalgic, and he hoped she had was remembering a happy childhood. There had been nothing but pain for her ever since she discovered her ability, and he'd seen how she glowed in those ever-more-frequent moments when she was happy. Anybody who lit up like that deserved as much happiness as they could get. If only because the rest of the world seemed a little brighter in the vicinity of her smile.

"How did you end up here?" he asked, looking at the turquoise-painted oceans that surrounded the island.

"When it all happened, Alejandro and I had to run," she said, her eyes distant. "We had family in Mexico, so we went west to find passage there. We were chased the whole time. Sometimes by the police, sometimes by others. I fear... I fear I may have killed then, too. But most of the time Alejandro was with me. With him there to calm me, I was able to stop."

"Yes, you mentioned. You've come a long way since then."

"I have," she agreed, twining her fingers together and stretching out her arms. "I think... I think he would be proud of me now. I think he would forgive me for trusting that man." Her eyes flickered dark for a moment.

"I'm sure he would. I'm sure your trusting nature is one of the reasons he loved you so much," Mohinder smiled.

It used to be times like these that he thought he heard Sylar's laughter. His grin was still dancing in the back of her eyes, after all. Mohinder felt a kinship with her even more in those times. She was the unlucky sequel to the story he had failed to end. They were bound by the evil that had confounded them, that they had confronted, that happy chance permitted them to live through. He wished he'd had the fortitude to end that story before she came along.

But right now he was unable to feel quite as guilty, or as unfortunate, as he usually did when thoughts of the past floated by. Because with every memory came another, more recent one. A pair of laughing brown eyes. An unassuming smile. A hand in his. And despite the tension that had been plaguing them, he couldn't help but feel good.

"You remind me a lot of myself, before I lost faith in the world," he mused. "It's funny, but just now, I'm starting to get that faith back."

The wind picked up briefly, and he shivered, wondering if it was going to rain. A bus came rumbling by, rattling the newspaper racks on the corner. How odd. He had been torturing himself over the words they'd had last night. But all things considered, he was happy to know who he'd be going home to tonight. He was glad Matt was there.

And that knowledge, like a spring long coiled at the bottom of his mind, burst into freedom, releasing an overwhelming torrent of joy. He staggered from the strength of it. He was glad Matt was there. What a revolutionary concept to him, to lean on someone. He'd been holding himself up so straight and so stiff for so long, he'd forgotten what it was to do that. To close one's eyes and fall backwards, trusting in a pair of arms to be there before one hits the ground.

He couldn't imagine a scenario in which Matt would let him fall. And that set him free.

"Doctor Suresh?" Maya was peering up into his face, confused at the myriad expressions she saw there.

"I'm sorry." He sighed, looked at the pavement, and smiled. "Happiness is a funny thing, isn't it? I'm unsure whether to laugh or cry."

"Doctor Suresh--" Maya began.

"Part of me wants to go running from it," Mohinder went on, leaning against a lamppost for balance as the vertigo of voicing his feelings hit him. His eyes found some spot far beyond and above her. "But when I face it, and there it is, right before me-- my heart just flies away." Again, he came to his senses. "I'm sorry. I don't know what I'm saying."

"I do. I understand completely. And if I can..." She steeled herself, took a step toward him.

"I suppose I ought to tell you what I'm talking about." He had to. He had to talk about it. The happiness was too much to keep inside.

"Yes. Please do." Hope lit her voice.

"It's... This may sound strange to you, but... it's Matt." Her gasped breath mirrored his own, and he fought to find his tongue again. "He and I have... that is... I never thought this would happen to me. I..." He looked her in the eye, seeking borrowed strength to say the words. "I've fallen for him." _And he caught me,_ he added to himself, feeling once again the powerful relief of that knowledge.

The confession hit her like a gust of wind, and she scrambled for breath. "...What?"

He was thinking now of their tete-a-tetes on the living room couch at night, past and future, memories and dreams, sliding like butter across their tongues until they knew each other that much more. And then inevitably they would progress to a different kind of knowing, and there was so much more he wanted to do of that, so much further he wanted to descend into that madness, trusting that sure grip and those steady eyes to keep him from losing his footing.

"We're..." He cleared his throat. "Dating. I suppose. Seeing each other. A... a couple. I don't even know if it's possible to be dating someone you're living with. But we are. And I'm..." For the first time in his life, the breathy, awed voice he heard felt like his own. "It's _great._"

God, his head was full of Matt now, full of the way he felt when he was around, the dull thudding of his heart against his ribs when skin touched skin accidentally in the day-to-day crush of the small apartment. There was a presence, or maybe a scent, because he was sure he could smell it when Matt was around, and even now he buzzed with the memory of it. Something palpable and heady. A spice, or a pull, like gravity. He wanted to be in that place, wanted to feel his control slide into nothing.

"But... but..."

"I know," he grinned. "It's insane. I've never even looked at another man, and now this... it's all so..." His heart was buzzing, but his voice was clear. "I'm so happy," he breathed. "We're both confused and panicking, and we are so happy."

He refocused on the real world. Maya was standing stock still, her eyes full of questions. Of course it would knock her for a loop. It did the same to him. "Thank you for listening," he said. "I am glad I have a friend to talk to about this."

"I am..." Maya stopped and forced a smile onto her face. "I'd better go."

Mohinder waved as she walked away, too lost in his own thoughts to really see her. It was so clear now. This was a _good_ thing. Something he wanted. He wanted to be able to go home and lean on that broad shoulder, have those strong fingers curled around his. He was the richer for knowing what it felt like to be scared out of your wits and burning up with the desire to touch someone. His first mistake had been running from it so long; his second had been pushing it away once it was within reach. For the first time that day, he had the hunch that things might just work out. If Matt could be persuaded to forgive him.

* * *

He went to pick up Molly that afternoon and took her out for ice cream. He'd barely seen her over the past few days. His dazzling, darling little girl, his brave beacon of hope and survival, are he'd been so wrapped up in his own affairs that he'd practically forgotten about her. So if she wanted the big sundae, the big sundae she got.

She licked her spoon and looked at him thoughtfully as he gaped, not knowing from what side he should attack this monstrous creation. It was like watching a train wreck in slow motion. Everywhere he looked, there was something about to dive to its death: fudge, marshmallow, a drip of ice cream.

"Just eat it," Molly finally said, taking a huge bite as though to demonstrate. He felt a swell of panic as her spoon knocked the scoop of chocolate ice cream out of alignment, loosening a huge chunk of it to melt, glacier-like, leaning over like a hunchback until it hit the breaking-and-falling point. In a blind rush, he reached out his spoon to salvage the breakaway chunk. When he caught it successfully, he felt a little like a hero.

"Save the sundae, save the world," Molly sang, amused.

"Oh, quiet, you," Mohinder retorted snidely.

"Matt's not mad at you, you know," she said.

A good bit of ice cream got sucked into Mohinder's lungs along with the air. He coughed. "Is he teaching you how to read minds, now?"

"Noooo." She looked at him like he was thirty shades of stupid. "I'm just telling you. 'Cause you look upset."

"I do?" The way Molly was looking at him reminded him now of his imagined if-she-had-lived Shanti. Skeptical. Half-amused. Curious. His heart constricted painfully in his chest. Perhaps he had conjured her out of his imagination, but he needed her wisdom. Why couldn't he go down to her house and sit in her sunny kitchen and talk about all his troubles? It seemed horribly unfair.

"Are you gonna cry?" Molly asked.

He shook himself. "No. No, I'm sorry. I was just thinking." After a pause, he steeled himself and asked, "Why are you so sure Matt isn't angry with me?"

"Cause he's buying you flowers right now," she said brightly, her eyes lustily peering atop the sundae. "Can I have the cherry?"

* * *

There were indeed flowers on the table when they came home, but they were daisies, thick and full in a tightly bound, opaque ball of blooms, and Mohinder figured Molly had located Matt at a flower shop and jumped to conclusions. (What else was that girl conjuring up about the two of them? he wondered in consternation.) The table was set, and Matt was at the stove, wearing his favorite apron and tasting spaghetti sauce with a wooden spoon. He turned and gestured with it. "Sit down." Then he stopped and pouted. "You guys had ice cream. That's the last time I come home early to cook dinner for you ungrateful brats." He harrumphed and shook the spoon with them. "Sit down anyway. I'll make you eat my cooking if I have to shovel it down your throats myself."

"It might just come to that," Mohinder muttered under his breath. His heart was throbbing high in his throat, and he felt wild elation along with anxiety. Matt looked like home, and he wanted desperately to be sheltered by that high roof, held in by those strong walls. His eyes raked quickly over the full length of his body, and he was seized with a desire to touch it all, to memorize each inch of it. This ran so much deeper than mere affection. This was a feeling hot to the touch, and reactive, and uncompromising. With a sudden shuddering of breath, Mohinder realized he was suffering from a bad case of lust. He quickly crossed to his seat, denoted by a half-full wine goblet on the far side of the table, and sat down.

Tucked into the daisies, invisible from the other side, was a single, short red rose, drooping like a sleepy swan over the neck of the vase. Around its curving neck was folded a noose of string, attached to a small hole-punched slip of paper. Mohinder leaned in to read the word scrawled on it.

SORRY

He looked at Matt. Who was looking at him, red-faced. Forgetting to breathe, he struggled to hold the eye contact, hoping the man standing there in the sauce-spattered apron with the shy gaze could see what he was feeling. It never occurred to him to think it.

* * *

They ate, cleaned up, clowned around, the normal routine, and then it was Molly's bedtime. Mohinder brought her to her room, putting his arms around her as she grabbed her favorite stuffed rabbit and tied her hair back for the night. He'd never questioned the rightness of living here with her, or of loving her, not for a moment. It had all fallen into place so easily. And he'd never been betrayed by that faith. Why, then, had he been so hesitant to embrace it when it came once again?

"Thank you for the ice cream," she said, snuggling into his embrace.

"We both needed it." He kissed her forehead. "Sleep well."

When he re-emerged, Matt was sitting at the kitchen table, hands folded in front of his face, staring at the bouquet and its hidden rose. He looked nervously at Mohinder, the anxiety in his face twitching. His hand gripped the table as though he was trying to summon the strength to rise.

Mohinder walked over, his head clear and his gaze deep. Matt watched, blank confusion in his eyes. All at once, he found his control and jumped to his feet, explaining at a mile a minute. "I really felt bad about what I said but you have to understand that I really just, I don't know even what I want to say, but I..."

Something about watching his lips fumble about was frustrating. So Mohinder stopped them. With his own.

God, he was melting.

When he pulled away they both stared in surprise. Matt blinked, then squeezed his eyes shut briefly, as though he expected to open them again and see a completely different scene.

Mohinder fought his heartbeat out of his throat. "I'm sorry, too," he said.

A grin of relief spread over Matt's face. He turned, paced a little bit. "Oh God. OK. All right. I'm about ready for my heart to slow down now." He fanned himself with one palm. "This is, this is... so nerve-wracking. I don't think I remember anything ever being this nerve-wracking. And I've been in _gunfights._ I'm going insane, you know. You've ruined me for sanity. How do you do that?" He peered back at Mohinder. "How do you stand there and look so beautiful and then get to say you're sorry? I'm the one who's sorry, didn't you get my note? Oh, God. Stop it, stop looking like that, you're killing me." He threw his hands in the air comically.

It was an exact mirror, in a different voice, of every emotional peak and valley Mohinder had been through over the past several days. He had no idea Matt had felt all this. He'd said he was nervous, said he was scared, but this was the first time Matt had _shown_ it. Mohinder felt impossibly touched, as though the small breakdown was the greatest compliment this man could pay him. He felt himself smile, felt warmth flood him. This was the feeling worth all the uncertainty and the fear, he knew. It gave him chills that he knew so completely. But when Matt answered his smile, he felt the warmth break into heat, and it was too much. He had to break the silence or he'd be swallowed by it.

"I spoke to Maya today," he said in a guarded tone.

"Oh?" There was that pinch of doubt in his voice. Mohinder was expecting it.

"About you." His eyes flickered over Matt's face, watched the surprise twitch his cheeks slightly. "About us, actually."

"You... you told her?" Matt was reddening fast. In no time, he was precisely the color of Molly's fuschia marker. It made Mohinder want to break out laughing.

Instead, he just nodded. "I had to talk to someone. Besides you. I hope you don't mind."

Matt shook his purple head. "Wha-- what did she say?"

Come to think of it, he hadn't really worried much about her reaction. "Nothing. She had to leave. But I'm fairly sure she will understand."

For a moment he thought Matt was going to protest that conclusion. Instead, he just walked around the table to lock the front door for the night. Across the room, he took another deep breath. "What did _you_ say?" he asked tentatively.

Now Mohinder was sure he was the one who was blushing. He could feel heat prickling at his skin. "I said..." He swallowed, fixed his gaze on the face turning toward him. "I said that I was happy."

He'd never seen a man's eyes go quite so wide in his life.

Matt moved to him, took his face between two large palms, and kissed him. Mohinder whimpered slightly and put arms around his neck. The kiss lingered. Matt licked at his lips lightly. Mohinder's hand snaked down under the neckline of his shirt. Skin on skin.

_What on earth?_ Mohinder thought, feeling the contact and the power of his kiss like a force pushing down on him. Matt suddenly took his lower lip between his teeth and sucked hard, and Mohinder felt it in his toes. His legs shuddered, and he gave a little cry of surprise.

Matt leaned them forward, Mohinder's back arching beneath him. And just to make his intent completely clear, Matt stopped him right there, bending over him, one hand on his waist, another beneath his shoulders.

"Mohinder. I _want_ you," he said.

The words were like fire. Mohinder wasn't sure he wasn't incinerated on the spot.

But then the kisses started again and he was a ball of flame because Matt's lips were on his neck, and hands at his waist, his hips... He was gasping, it was too much, it was so fast. "Matt-- wait, if Molly wakes up..."

"Your bedroom's bigger," was the mumbled reply. Half of Mohinder's shirt was unbuttoned by this time; he thought he'd be naked in the hallway if he didn't stop and make a mad dash for the bedroom right now. He gave a great push and took off down the hall, feeling the heavier footfalls behind him. Matt ducked into his own room first, pointing a finger upward in the sign for _just a minute_. Mohinder took the moment to sit down on his bed and take a breath.

Holy God, this was really going to happen. This was going to happen _tonight._

He looked down at himself. Open shirt, tented pants... he looked a sight. He tried to remember everything he'd read. How would they figure out who was going to do what? Would it happen naturally? Would the positions work out? Would he have a cramp in the morning? And what about _that_? Would it be disgusting? Would he be able to _feel_ it? Would they smell bad afterwards? His mind was abuzz with questions, so much so that when Matt appeared again, shirt hanging loose and open, just above him, he almost didn't notice.

"Matt, I'm not sure..." he began before Matt put one knee over his legs and trapped him in a kiss.

The warmth was overpowering. Mohinder's brain nearly short-circuited. All of a sudden he was being pressed into the bed by a strong, wide frame. Could the moth-eaten mattress take it? he wondered. Dimly he was aware that he was kissing back, that his hands were on the smoothness of Matt's chest, that there was an answering heat to his pressing into his hips, and that he was probably on fire and burning to death. He heard himself groan, heard a low growl in Matt's throat, and felt electricity whip through him as he jerked his hips upward to grind into that heat. Nothing deserved to feel this good. Nothing.

"I..." he whispered shakily into Matt's mouth. "I bought a book... I tried to learn..."

Matt's eyes met his. "Me too..." he said. "I bought some things, too..." He jerked his head toward a small plastic bag on the floor near the bed. "Oh, God, I really, _really_ want this," he said in abandon, pressing his lips into Mohinder's neck.

"Me, too," whispered Mohinder, his mouth dry. He did. He didn't care what happened or how disgusting it was. He swallowed, gasped for air. "I want this. I want you..."

Matt eased off of him, never losing eye contact, and reached down onto the floor for the bag. Their eyes steadied each other as, shaking, they both began to undo their pants. Belts and zippers like the final guardians of denial, cast away, slowly, but finally, as the tops of boxers came into view, soon it would be all over and they'd be looking at each other nude, there'd be no turning back. The moment felt like an eternity.

Then there was a sharp rap at the apartment door.

They drew in sharp, sucking breaths. "What the hell?" Matt growled. "Who could--"

"Doctor S!" came a sharp, treble voice.

"Elle? What the..." Mohinder pulled his belt back on, fumbling with the buckle desperately, like a blind man. The buttons gave him trouble. Matt helped, swearing a blue streak under his breath.

"Doctor S! Open up! Please! I'll burn up your door, I swear!"

"I'm coming!" Mohinder hissed, launching himself up from the bed and stomping down the hall. "What on earth..."

He opened the door and Elle rushed right past him into the apartment. She made for the kitchen counter and leaned against it heavily, panting. When she looked up again, he could see that she was flushed and out of breath.

"I lost her," she said.

"What? Elle, of all the..."

"Maya." She was as scared as Mohinder had ever seen her. "She never came home. She's gone."

**Next: What's in Maya's file.**


	8. Chapter 7

**LEGACIES**

by Jennifer Rubio (nee Wand)

_Chapter 7_

**One week ago**

She was glowing, looking like a dreamy teenager, when she came over. Wearing an outfit Matt hadn't seen her wear before. Thinking wildly in Spanish. Matt couldn't make any sense of the words, save a few "yo" and "esta," but the tone was unmistakable. Maya was hoping for something.

He thought it was about time to start mending fences, now that he knew he had a claim to Mohinder that she didn't know of. So he greeted her, battling to shrug off the flood of mistrust that wafted off her thoughts like smoke or dry ice. He'd invited her in, served her a drink, smiled pleasantly as he explained the Mohinder had taken Molly to the movies and would be back shortly.

And then, unexpectedly, Maya had turned to him and clasped his hands. "Tell me," she asked, as sincerely as she could muster. "What kind of person does Doctor Suresh like?"

"What kind of _person_..."

"Woman. What kind of _woman._"

Matt was dumbstruck. How could he answer that question? _Sorry, kid, I've singlehandedly turned the good doctor bi and he's all mine, so cut out?_ Perhaps that would be the easiest answer, after all. But Mohinder cared for her, and Matt, try as he might to act tough, wasn't that callous. He sighed. "You know, I really don't know. He likes nine-year-olds with red hair named Molly, if that's any indication." She chuckled appreciatively. "But I really have never seen him date anyone. I'd say he's pretty much married to his work."

"I see." Her face fell, and he prayed that that would be the end of it. No such luck. "Do you think... he..."

"No," Matt said bluntly. More so than he meant to be, but he couldn't be so nice as to encourage someone else to pursue the man he was secretly seeing. It was a line he couldn't cross, even for the sake of protecting their still-clandestine relationship.

"What? Why?!" All of a sudden her fists were balled up, and she was on fire with defiance.

And Matt was torn. Why should he protect her, protect Mohinder, at his own expense? What on earth entitled her to stand there and glare at him? Was this just the perennial fate of the nice guy-- to have to suffer all sorts of indignities simply because he hadn't spoken to his erstwhile boyfriend about the possibility of the two of them coming out of the closet? God, what utter idiocy, he thought bitterly. And the worst part was, he had no intention of changing now. Nice guy it was.

Besides, that night Mohinder took his hand and placed it under his shirt, on his stomach, and allowed Matt to explore his skin, and Matt swore right then and there that he was damn well going to put up with a few minor annoyances if it meant he got to keep touching this man.

And why worry the chronic worrier even more? It wasn't as if anything could come of Maya's crush, besides Mohinder feeling endlessly guilty. No. He didn't need to know.

* * *

**Last night**

He was regretting that conclusion now. All traces of the brat Mohinder had described to him were gone, and Elle was panicked, ghost-white, breathless. Matt could only imagine what sort of situation could turn the supposed ice queen into a panting, stammering mess. Perhaps he should say something after all.

Then she pointed to Matt's half-buttoned shirt and said, "I totally interrupted something, didn't I?" in a voice that couldn't conceal a bit of sadistic glee. And Matt's jaw snapped shut.

The man beside him was still staring down at the floor, as though he was having trouble deciding which of the myriad bits of information he should deal with first. Finally, his head snapped up. "You've been spying on her?" he hissed. Not the opening Matt would have gone with, considering he was always spying himself, only half of the time on purpose.

"Of course we have! What are you, stupid?" Elle exploded, blue static turning her hair into a frenzied mess. "She's a walking bomb! You think we're going to just drug her up and let her be?"

"Actually, yes, I did," Mohinder retorted. "She is a grown woman, and she deserves her own life and her own privacy. For your information, it is perfectly legal in this country to spend a night away from home. She may have met someone, you know."

"You think she's out getting LAID?" Electricity hissed along the lines of Elle's fingers. "You are possibly the stupidest man in the universe, you know that!?"

"All I know," Mohinder said through gritted teeth, "is that the woman you're talking about is a human being, not your doll. I have told you to stop treating her like one. Now go back home. We'll talk about this in the morning."

"You're gonna be sorry," she said, and stomped out the door. "You better be at work tomorrow!" And she slammed it so hard the doorframe shook.

"Oh, for goodness' sake." Mohinder ran an anxious comb of fingers through his tousled hair.

"She does have a reason to be concerned," Matt said. He buttoned up his shirt the rest of the way, and Mohinder looked at him with more than a little regret. _An opportunity lost,_ he thought. Matt smiled briefly as the thought hit him.

"I think she's overreacting," Mohinder said, shaking his head.

"Actually." Matt took his hand loosely. His voice was quiet. "There's something I kind of didn't tell you."

Mohinder looked down at their interlaced fingers. His brain seemed to be processing all of this far too slowly. He wanted to knock himself against a wall until it all made sense. "Wait. What are you...?"

"I told you I heard what she was thinking sometimes." Matt sighed, and when he looked at Mohinder, his eyes were penitent, as though the confession were his own. "Your friend's got a reason to worry. Maya's in love with you. You probably broke her heart today."

* * *

**Five weeks ago**

Bob Bishop could be a very scary man when he wanted to be. He preferred to stay unobtrusive, but there were situations in which being scary was to his advantage. And facing down a wayward daughter who could shoot lightning out of her fingers was a situation in which it behooved him to be very scary. "Elle, I am very disappointed in you," he said.

"Daddy, I'm sorry." She was suitably scared. Thank God he'd gotten to her when she was very young. Someday she'd realize she could probably take his head off with impunity. But not yet. Right now, the tilt of his head and the blase tone of his voice was enough to keep her in line.

"Sorry is not going to cut it, I think you know that much. You're lucky I still keep you on staff."

Her eyes were full of tears. "What was I supposed to do? I saw him and I zapped the hell out of him!"

"Thus enabling his escape. Along with the blood of Claire Bennet, whom you _also_ allowed to escape." Bob sighed the sigh of the patient, put-upon saint enduring great hardship. He spoke a slow crescendo up to a shaking, shattering breaking point. "Elle, I have had a very bad week. I have lost all my samples of the Shanti virus, I have had to order the assassination of a public figure in broad daylight. And I, frankly, cannot handle any more _incompetence!_"

"But Daddy!"

"Enough!" He slammed an open palm down on his desk. "You're benched. I don't want to see your face here anymore." He crossed his arms in a gesture of finality.

But her eyes had followed his hand to the desk and stayed there. Lying on the surface was a manila folder with a photograph of a familiar-looking woman. "Hey, who's that?"

"'That' is none of your concern." Bob said wearily.

"But I know her. I know where--"

"What?" This was not the response he was anticipating. She should be panicked by now, cowering in a corner, simpering. Bob wondered once again if his control over her was weakening. This had to be the doctor's fault. He'd make sure to limit their contact in the future.

But by then Elle had snatched the file and was reviewing it with great interest. "Maya Herrera, huh? Interesting file. She'd be useful to you, Daddy, wouldn't she?"

Bob forgot himself for a moment and panicked, grabbing the file back. He adjusted his glasses as Elle raised an eyebrow in surprise. "Hands off her," he said, a trace of fear in his voice. "She's not someone you want to deal with." He sighed. "This woman is my last hope, and I cannot afford to have you messing this one up, too."

Strangely enough, the girl seemed to soften at this admission of vulnerability. "I could at least bring her in," she offered.

Interesting. Perhaps this was a new tack. He didn't often play on her affections rather than her fears. But it promised to be more useful than in the past. Perhaps he should encourage association with the young doctor instead. "Fine. Bring her in. But that's where it ends."

She threw her arms around him. "Thank you!"

"And Elle? Screw this one up and you're fired."

After all, he thought as she winced, scare tactics couldn't be discounted entirely.

* * *

**This morning**

Elle was perched on the windowsill when Mohinder arrived at the lab. She looked awful, like she hadn't slept in weeks. It was the least put-together he'd ever seen her, and he had a sudden sinking feeling, which only worsened when Elle jumped down from the sill and slapped Maya's file onto a table.

"Daddy doesn't know I've been keeping her file. I haven't told him yet that she's disappeared. I think he's gonna kill me." She opened the file. A pair of magnified photos showed amorphous gray cells squirming on microscope slides. Beneath each, a chart of scrawled digits and symbols scrambled in an uneasy hand across the pages. Mohinder gazed at them with growing concern.

"This is the first week she was here," Elle said, pointing to the left-hand picture. Her hand slid across the file. "This was last week."

"Even by the first week the structure was beginning to change," Mohinder mused, chewing on his lip. "But here... the rate at which the change must have happened... My God. Was it you? Did you do something to her?" His eyes shot upward to her face with such ferocity that Elle whimpered.

"Of course we didn't do anything to her," she said. "You think we're gonna mess with _that_? God, we learned when we couldn't hold onto Sylar that you neutralize it or you kill it, or it will get out of control. I wish we'd just killed her, to be perfectly honest."

"Elle, for goodness' sake..." But the data on the charts was more shocking even than her bloodlust, and he turned back to it, drawing his thumb under the data, line by line. "This must have doubled each day to reach these levels."

"No," she said, holding back a sheaf of pages to show him another chart. "It went up 500 percent within three days."

"That's insane!"

"Why are you so surprised?" she hissed back. "You know that these powers change suddenly. What about your boyfriend, huh? Didn't he just all of a sudden start being able to mess with people's heads? No baby steps there."

"But..." Mohinder was torn between his anger and his skepticism. "Matt was traumatized; he had a life-altering experience."

"Doctor S. _Please._" Elle rolled her eyes so wide Mohinder was sure he could hear the ball bearings rattling around in her skull. "I know you're not a girl, but you have to know how awful it's got to be to fall madly in love and get your heart stepped on. Twice. Especially when Boy Number One is a serial killer and Boy Number Two is gay."

"I'm not-—" He was embarrassed at how quickly the reflex kicked in.

"Riiiight." Again, the eye roll. "Look, the point is, to make the story short? You need to find her. She's Death Walking. In new enhanced deluxe mode."

"Why do I have to find her?" Mohinder demanded. "Why can't you go—-zap her long-distance, or something?"

"You're the one with the tracking system at home, Doc," she yawned.

He slammed the file shut. "Don't you dare drag her into this."

"Why not?"

"Because she's a child and there is no reason to traumatize her any further!" he bellowed, leaning over the table. "Ask your father. He has considerable resources at his disposal..."

Elle turned pale. Mohinder thought she was going to fall over. "You don't understand," she said. "I can't. You need to find her. Now."

"Why?"

She shrank back, shaking her head.

"Elle." Something occurred to him that scared him silly. "What have you been doing with her?"

His eyes slid down over the chart again. This time, they hit a number he hadn't seen before. When he looked back at her, she recoiled as if he'd hit her.

His voice was a low, slow burn. "How long has she been off the medication?"

* * *

**Four weeks ago**

Maya was sobbing.

She'd done a lot of it recently, and it was a good thing they gave her plenty of water, because she had to be dehydrated by now. But in these long, silent moments, the enormity of everything she'd done and seen came back to her in a huge lump, and she was overcome by doubt and loneliness.

She'd lost her whole family. She'd killed. She'd run for her life. She'd met a stranger and been fooled by him. She'd betrayed the only person who ever really cared for her, and she'd lost him, too. She'd even died.

What would have happened if that man-- be his name Gabriel, or Sylar, or whatever-- had never come into their lives? Would she still have her brother there to speak sense to her? Would she have learned to listen to him by now? So many questions and all of them futile, thanks to that man and his awful lies. She scowled at the ceiling. If only she could get him alone. Just once.

"Yow, if looks could kill."

Maya scrambled to her feet. Elle was in the doorway, hip cocked and head tilted, with a half-smile of lazy interest sprawling across her lips. "Miss Bishop," she said politely. "G-- good morning."

"Afternoon, actually," Elle said, sauntering into the cell. She held a small plastic cup, its opening flush against her palm, the handful of pills inside jangling with every step. "Hard to keep track down here."

"Oh. I'm sorry. Good afternoon, then." Maya was reminded of why she didn't like this girl. She turned up her nose in the haughtiest expression she could muster.

Elle wasn't even shaken. She sat down on the plain pallet, turning the cup right-side-up in her hand, shaking the medicine inside and patiently watching the pills jump with every motion of her wrist. Maya watched her watching them and finally approached cautiously. Elle looked into her eyes briefly, then at the mattress beside her. A wordless invitation to sit. Maya obeyed, digging her nails into the bed for support as though Elle might try to pounce on her.

Instead, she just turned her head to stare at Maya's eyes. She let the stare settle a moment, then grinned. "You've been thinking about the Big Bad, haven't you? How he used you?"

Maya held out her palm. "May I have my medicine, please?"

"But you don't want it, do you?" challenged Elle. "You want to find him and kill him."

Silence. Maya blinked.

"I can see it in your eyes." Elle elbowed her. Her sinister smirk was laced with saccharin. "You've got vengeance in mind. It's a good look for you."

The implications of her challenge finally hit Maya full-on. "What are you saying? I would kill many more people than just Gabriel if I..."

"That's funny," Elle interrupted, "I thought you'd said you were starting to learn some control." She rose to her feet, stood a few feet from Maya as though about to perform for her. "What's to say you can't learn more control?"

"I don't understand."

Elle smiled broadly. "Here. Watch this."

All at once a shower of blue sparks burst from her hands, crackling and fizzing. They flew to every corner of the room. An edge of the bedsheet caught fire, and Elle was quick to stamp it down. Maya cried out and shielded her eyes. Finally the sparks fizzled, and Elle rubbed her hands together, wincing as smoke rose from her fingers.

"That," she said, "was you before. And this is you now."

She held out one hand, and gingerly, a loop of lightning rose and arced in the air before petering out gently and without a fight.

"See the difference?" Maya nodded. "Good." Elle leaned forward as though about to tell a great secret. "But this, chiquita..."

She stood back and pointed one finger. A blast issued from it, and Maya jumped and flinched. When she peeked out from behind her hands, her eyes opened wide in wonder.

Against the floor of the cell, in long arcing lines and glittering, were eleven letters made of lightning: ELLE WAS HERE.

And then Elle closed her fist and they were gone. "This," she explained triumphantly, "is who you can be."

Maya was silent, staring at the floor where the message had been. Elle watched as the gears shifted into place in her brain, as she realized the implications of what Elle was offering her. Finally, she looked up at Elle with a pleading look.

Elle smiled the smile of a crocodile lying in wait. "All you've got to do is trust me," she said, slinging a casual arm around the girl. "I can help you. And we'll kick his sorry little ass from here back to Argentina."

Maya started.

"Or wherever," Elle added hastily.

* * *

**Now**

"...but by then her blood was changing." Mohinder tried to nod evenly as he finished Elle's sentence, but he was white now, too. To think she'd never been medicated, that she'd been a danger to his family the whole time-- it was unbearable. He felt a fresh wave of guilt. He should have insisted on testing and monitoring her himself, instead of standing back and letting the Company take care of her.

"I took her blood again yesterday," Elle said, rocking back and forth as though in a trance. "Look at the last page of the file."

Mohinder flipped through it. "My God," he breathed. "This pattern... it's acting less like a poison and more like a pathogen at this point." He scanned the data quickly. It was shocking how virulent the mutation had become.

It suddenly occurred to him that her elbow had been bandaged when he spoke to her early that day. When Elle had taken the sample, Maya hadn't yet known about his relationship with Matt. These changes, monumental as they are, were merely the legacy of her changing feelings. And if he had truly broken her heart, as Matt said...

He suddenly understood why Elle was so afraid. "At this rate-- it could kill her, too."

"_That's_ not the issue," Elle said under her breath.

"What did you say?"

Elle bit her lip. "Nothing," she muttered.

"Is there something else you're not telling me?" He shut the file, fixing her with a piercing gaze. She shrank from it.

"Don't," she pleaded. "Don't."

"What? What is it?" Mohinder asked her several times, but Elle shook her head silently back and forth several times. Biting her lip as though she didn't trust her own tongue.

"Elle!"

"It's your fault!" she lashed out. "You're the one that led her on and broke her heart! How was I supposed to know she'd turn into Typhoid Maya?!" He could see her control cracking, and little blue bolts were leaping from finger to finger at the edge of her curled fists.

"I'm not blaming you," he said, trying to keep his voice even. "But you need to tell me what you know or there's no way I can help her."

And then Elle did something he'd never seen her do: she burst into tears. "It's just that Daddy was so mad about it-- and I thought it was like anything else, if I can teach her how to control it-- then we could get Sylar, and then Daddy could get back what he lost and--"

"What he lost?" He risked the shock and grabbed her shoulders with both his hands, cursing when the pops of static hit him. "Elle, what are you--"

Then his cell phone rang.

He leapt back, frantic. "Maya!?" he gasped as he opened the little device.

"Mohinder? Oh, thank God. No, it's me." It was Matt's voice, with a high tinge of anxiety coloring the words. Nobody was having an easy time of it today, apparently.

Mohinder went into panic mode. "Matt, what's wrong? Is it Molly?"

"No, she's at school, she's fine. It's me. Mohinder, I... I don't know who else to call. Can you come meet me? I'm down near Union Square, it's... I'll text you the address, it's..."

"Matt." Mohinder squeezed his eyes shut. "What is it!?"

Matt lowered his voice to little more than a rasp. "Something's wrong with me," he said. "I... I can't do it. I can't hear anyone's thoughts. It's just gone!"

**Next: Love conquers all**


	9. Chapter 8

**LEGACIES**

by Jennifer Rubio (nee Wand)

_Chapter 8_

Downtown's traffic snarl made Mohinder feel as though he were climbing a jungle gym. The address, black-on-gray on his cell phone, was pale in his hand. He was sure he'd memorized it the moment it came through, but he kept glancing back, afraid it had changed, or he'd remembered it wrong, or something else horrible and catastrophic. And everywhere, wire fences and car exhaust and silver vending carts in his path. He dodged and darted. He had to get there. He had to get to Matt.

Three floors up and again wire and metal impeded his progress. An elevator that wouldn't come. He took the stairs. Outside, the sirens sang the blues into the cavern of his ears. As he approached the door, the name plate-- _Walk-in Clinic. Dr. Wong, Dr. Howe, Dr. Russell_-- swung toward him and Matt's face appeared, an anxious glance into the hallway that jumped in surprise when it actually saw Mohinder there. "Oh, thank God, finally," he said, stepping outside and running down the hall to him, grabbing both his hands. "I thought you'd never get here."

"I'm here now. What happened?"

"I'm not sure. We got called out here and-- God, it's like a massacre in there, you don't want to see it-- but that's when it happened, a few minutes after I got in I tried-- and I couldn't hear anything. I don't know what's going on, and... I'm scared," he admitted, a hollowness in his voice. "I don't know how to explain it. I'm just scared."

Mohinder was scared too, he discovered. He'd had the idea knocking around in the back of his head since Matt's call, but now it came rocketing forward. What if Matt had contracted the Shanti virus?

Loss of power was the first symptom, of course-- the virus targeted and latched onto those abnormalities as its entry point. But then the other physical symptoms started. Immune system failure, shortness of breath, fever, delirium, weakness--

_--and then I could lose him._

Suddenly he was shaking. He grabbed Matt's arms, leaned his head in toward his shoulder, breathed in the scent of his closeness. He tried to think about what it would be like to not have him there, snide and sometimes rude and solid and real. Matt trading joking barbs with Molly. Matt watching football like it was a religious ceremony. Matt tearing into him about the Company and all he was sure they'd done. Matt leaning on his shoulder late at night, too drained to deny how badly he needed the contact and comfort. Matt kissing him, lips soft on his, making him feel like melting butter. Matt laughing. Matt shouting. Just Matt.

He couldn't imagine a time he wouldn't be there, couldn't remember a time he hadn't been. It was like life began and ended in that small apartment, the ratty hand-me-down of his father's that had somehow become his. And then Molly and Matt came to live there and it had somehow become home. Because _they_ were home.

And without meaning to, he was stepping in closer, moving into Matt's arms, tears filling his eyes, thinking the same thought wildly over and over and over even though it frightened him to think that he was thinking it, frightened him to know that it was coming from a place so deep inside him that it couldn't be anything but true.

_I love you. I love you. I love you._

Matt stepped back. "God, you have weird timing, you know that?"

Mohinder looked up, trying to blink the tears away. Embarrassingly, they instead spilled onto his cheeks. "What?" It was a pale, chalky whisper.

"Look, um, I'm not good at this." Matt was blushing. "But, you know, this hasn't been the greatest day, and I'm just about desperate enough that I'll take it and run with it." He ran a quick finger over Mohinder's jaw, kissed him softly on the lips, just once. "I love you, too."

"Matt..." For a moment he thought he might melt into the floor. He hadn't meant for this to happen, hadn't meant to realize it at this worst of all possible times. And he certainly hadn't meant to let him into his head far enough to read what he himself had only just realized.

Then it hit. "I thought you said you couldn't read minds."

"Huh? You mean you didn't say that out loud?" Matt blinked and blushed. "Oh, jeez. God, that's..."

"Not something we need to worry about right now." Mohinder wanted to be amused by Matt's awkward embarrassment, but all of a sudden the name plate on that door was boring into his eyes. A clinic. What if a patient here had the virus? What if it had gone airborne? "I need to go in--"

"No. Mohinder. You don't want to--" But Mohinder already had his hand on the door and was pulling on the knob.

The room was full of dead bodies.

Dead receptionists slumped over the counter. Dead patients young and old fallen on the floor and crouched in front of their chairs. A dead nurse at the inner door, her clipboard splayed over her outstretched, limp arm. And two policemen, not dead but suffering, breathing heavily, clutching at their throats as though the room were full of smoke. And both of them looked up at him with eyes like those on the dead bodies, eyes streaming with black tears.

"Maya," he breathed. "She was here." He felt like throwing up, felt like screaming. He groped for Matt, who caught him in mid-faint. Mohinder struggled for coherence. "My God," he whispered, pale and white. "She really is..."

It was almost too much to take. The grotesque array of corpses, the demonic black scrawls of dying tears. Just as bad was the thought that he had hurt her so much that she had lost control like this. And she had been so happy just a day ago, standing outside that restaurant and talking animatedly about everything from her escape from the Dominican Republic to her new dress...

And then it hit him.

_"He kept breathing and moving... If the boat had not been there, we might..."_

He stared at the scene, dumbfounded at his own idiocy. The sound of pieces snapping into place was ringing in his ears. The Dominican Republic. Through Haiti, westward to Mexico.

Mohinder knew the identity of the one man who'd survived Maya's power.

He'd _treated_ him.

It was two hours to Hartsdale, and he didn't have time to waste a second. He moved so fast toward the staircase that he never heard Matt call his name in surprise, never saw Matt's fellow officers stand straight up, breathing easier, their eyes clearing.

* * *

The sound of the door slamming behind Mohinder was like a thunderclap-- deep and resonant. The books rattled on the shelves. Bob neither jumped nor spoke. He simply raised an eyebrow and put down the book he was engrossed in.

"Maya Herrera," Mohinder said. His voice echoed against the wood paneling. "She's the same as Shanti, isn't she? What she does. It's the virus. She infects people."

Bob smiled. "Brilliant. I knew you would have the chance to figure it out sooner or later. Yes, Miss Herrera emits the Shanti virus. Dreadful thing, really."

Mohinder strode to the mahogany desk and slammed his palms against it. "But my sister died of the virus when she was only five years old. How on earth has Maya surv--" Then his eyes met Bob's. And he saw some genuine grief there. A flash of humanity in a face that was usually so clinical, so businesslike and cold.

"Allow me to clarify," Bob said in a voice that didn't sound like his own. "Miss Herrera is indeed just like your unfortunate sister would have been. If she'd been allowed to mature."

And all of a sudden Mohinder realized why his father had nearly gone insane with grief. It wasn't just losing a child, as horrific as that is. It was giving a child up.

"My sister didn't die of the virus, did she?" he said slowly.

"Her death was because of the virus, yes."

"But she didn't die of it, did she?"

Bob ran his hand along the cover of the book. "No."

Mohinder straightened up. Running his fingers through his hair, he paced, his voice shocked, broken. "You killed her. Because she could have transmitted it to others."

The man behind the desk heaved a heavy sigh. "If her power had matured, yes. We were lucky to get to Shanti when she was as young as she was."

Bob got up. "Chandra Suresh was frantic. He called every university he could, looking for reasons as to why his baby girl had started crying black tears. We were able to intervene fairly easily. When Victoria analyzed her blood, she realized that with maturity and time, the hormone she was secreting would be able to kill normal people in seconds. Those with genetic anomalies would also die, albeit slower, and after losing their particular abilities." He heaved a heavy sigh. "It was a difficult decision to make, Doctor Suresh. We took no joy in it, believe me."

"But Maya's blood has mutated again," Mohinder said. His body was still shaking, but he needed all the revelations now, so he could deal with them and move on. "Is it possible that she..."

"I'm afraid so, Doctor." Bob nodded gravely, coming to stand toe to toe with Mohinder in the big room. "My daughter is under the mistaken impression that I don't know what she's been up to. It was a valiant effort on her part, but the power Miss Herrera wields cannot be controlled. What's more, the Shanti virus she emits now has a chance of going airborne. The threat of a worldwide outbreak was not ended when your friend Mr. Petrelli destroyed our sample. It's now a very real possibility."

Even though he had suspected it, Mohinder still staggered a few steps at hearing the truth spoken. He felt waves of guilt overwhelm him. If he hadn't led her on, hadn't allowed her to believe he might feel something for her, even unknowingly, could he have prevented this disastrous turn of events?

"This was our miss, not yours," Bob said as though sensing his guilt. "We should have stopped her when we had the chance. Instead, we took a hard look at ourselves in the wake of the Bennet fiasco and thought, let's try to be humanitarian."

"Wait. Stop." Mohinder's head was still spinning. "This doesn't make any sense. Why would you allow Elle to continue experimenting with Maya if you knew she was..."

Bob smiled ruefully at him.

He felt his heart plummet to his socks. "My God," he said. "You wanted more samples of the virus, so you could continue your sadistic research. You're an animal!"

"Not at all," Bob grinned. "We've been quite humanitarian about the whole thing. We've even taken out an insurance policy."

"An insurance..."

And Bob stretched out his hand and pointed straight at Mohinder. "You."

"Me? What do you mean?"

The lizardlike grin returned. "Did Miss Herrera ever tell you about her brother?"

"What? What does her..."

And Bob bridged the gap between them, leered into Mohinder's face. Eye, eyeglasses, eye. "Do you think you're just a normal human being, Dr. Suresh? You, whose blood can cure a virus? More importantly, did you think we kept you around purely for the value of your research?"

It was too much. Mohinder shrank back from the emotional implications of it all, returned to the frantic cogitation that was his first line of defense. Think logically and the rest will fall into place. His blood contained a natural immunity to the disease, which he was able to tap to synthesize a cure. But that was no surprise to either of them. What it had to do with Maya's twin brother, who seemed to be the indispensable key to controlling his sister's outbursts...

He froze. And he mouthed three words without a voice.

_Brother and sister._

His eyes cleared. The world came rolling back into focus. Bob was smiling triumphantly. "Yes, Doctor Suresh. Precisely."

He tried to find his voice, succeeding only in a hoarse whisper. "So I am... I have an ability?"

"Not as such," Bob said sadly. "You, like Miss Herrera's brother, carry the antidote to the disease in your blood. You yourself have seen it. It was our hope that we would be able to provide the impetus to speed your mutation along if the time came, but we have been unable to discern the key to doing that. So you remain unable to emit an airborne antidote, as he did."

"You're wrong."

"No, I'm quite clear on this. Your daughter is living proof of it. She required an infusion of your blood to be cured."

"No, I can emit it. I have."

The voice was full of sunshine. Bob had to do a double take, "Beg pardon?"

Mohinder's smile was wide. His eyes lost focus and he began to ramble, pacing back and forth in the lavish study. "Matt called me," he narrated. "I went down to meet him. He said he lost his power. I suddenly realized that if he had the virus, I might lose him, and I panicked... and it returned. His power returned. I must have emitted it. That must have been what happened."

Bob observed the rant, his eyes squinting closer and closer as the young man went on. Finally, he cleared his throat. "Doctor Suresh," he said with some embarrassment, "believe it or not, I try to make it a habit not to inquire about the personal lives of my employees."

"You're right, I don't believe it." Mohinder tried to sound cross, but the light in his voice could not be so easily vanished.

And hearing that light, Bob knew the answer to his question even before he asked it. "Have you, by any chance, fallen in love with Officer Parkman?"

Mohinder smiled widely. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I have."

Of course. Of course it should work out this way. The legacies of his parents' pain, of his sister's sacrifice, woven inextricably into his own life story. And the living legacy of a blossoming love. Of course they should be borne into the moment when they were needed the most.

Bob actually clapped his hands with delight. "How extraordinary. It seems we may have a true case of _amor vincit omnia._ Just as Miss Herrera's feelings for you prompted her change..."

"...my feelings for Matt caused me to begin to emit the antidote," he breathed.

The man nodded. "And, it appears, at an even more sophisticated rate than the late Mister Herrera ever managed." He smiled as genuinely and as widely as Mohinder had ever seen him. "Congratulations, Doctor. You appear to have saved the world today."

* * *

Molly found Maya in an alleyway. She was running from everyone who approached, panicky, starving. When she saw Mohinder approaching her, she tried to run. Matt froze her in place. He hated doing it, but he had to... at least until Mohinder was close enough to tell her it was OK, that he could do what Alejandro could do, that she couldn't hurt him and wouldn't hurt anyone while he was there. She burst into tears and ran into his arms, crying "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to, I never have."

He looked at her with shining eyes and said, "And you never will again."

* * *

They injected her with periodic infusions of his blood. Her system tried desperately to reject it, and for a while she was very sick, delirious and vomiting when she wasn't sedated. But the therapy, torturous as it was, seemed to work. By the end of the week, she didn't show any sign of the pheromones, even when being shown her favorite _telenovelas_ (in a sealed room, of course). By the second week, her genetic markers had returned to normal.

Mohinder practically lived at the lab that month, and Matt and Molly came often to visit, seeing him more often at his job than at home. It was an OK sacrifice to make. Sometimes you just have to put your happiness on hold to save the world, Matt explained, and Molly puffed up her chest with pride and said, "I can take it."

When it was all over with, Maya moved out west. It was too painful for her, she said, to be this close, to see them this often. Mohinder would send boosters of his blood if things got iffy. She smiled and said, "Be good to each other." And that was that. She was gone.

* * *

"Another nightmare behind us," Matt said as he closed the door to Molly's bedroom.

Mohinder was standing at the counter, rubbing his hand anxiously against his sleeve. "Do we have to keep facing them?" he wondered plaintively, his eyes seeking out Matt's. "One nightmare after another, until we die?"

Matt shrugged stoically. "I don't know. If we do--"

Mohinder interrupted him with words and with flying arms and shoulders rocketing against his. "I don't want to," he pleaded, burying his head in Matt's shoulder like a selfish child. "I want to declare a moratorium on nightmares. Can I do that? At least for tonight?" His face turned upward, the searching look still on his face.

"Sure, sure. Anything you want." Matt kissed his forehead, cradling him in strong arms. "No nightmares tonight."

A pair of tears escaped Mohinder's eyes at the touch of Matt's lips. He grazed his own mouth against the stubble of his chin, then cheeks, as Matt kissed the bridge of his nose. And then there was a seismic shift and they were holding tight to each other, kissing like dying men, like the world might crumble any minute and this was their very, very last chance.

_I'm not going to wait one more night._

_No, me neither._

Who had the thought and who replied? The voices were jumbled, shadowed. Perhaps they both did. It didn't matter. It was true.

There were gasps and awkward motions, and the grasping of a wrist, a hip. Somehow they were back where they'd started this dance, in a room, on a bed, Matt on top of Mohinder, pressing into him, groaning deliriously. Mohinder's hips stretched taut against him. Shoulders straining. But this time, when Matt held his eyes and reached for the things he'd bought, there was no interruption. No screaming outside the door. Just silence.

Mohinder's teeth began to chatter, then. "This is truly unmarked territory," he whispered.

"Where's your sense of exploration?" Matt teased, though his face was white.

"How are we going to--" Mohinder stammered, the old rusty clanking of logic groaning at shouldering the unfamiliar load. "That is, who will--"

"I don't know. I have no idea," Matt said. "You can, if you want."

"This is awkward," Mohinder said regretfully. "I hope I don't-- that is, I hope you're still OK--"

At this, Matt grabbed his hand and put it firmly on him. "Feel that?" he growled. "That has been waiting over a month for you. We're still OK. You could tell me I had to wait a year. You could tell me I had to-- I don't even know what-- but whatever it is, it wouldn't stop me from wanting you."

He didn't have to say all that. The moment he'd felt that heat with his own hand, Mohinder had lost all semblance of doubt. He was on fire, his tongue was in knots, he was about to die. And he knew exactly what he wanted. "Take me," he breathed. "I want to be the first to feel what it's like."

"Are you sure?" Matt asked, cupping his hands gently around Mohinder's face.

Mohinder echoed the motion with his own hands. "I want to be able to tell you it's OK," he said. "I want to know. I want to be the one to reassure you."

"Mohinder..."

"You're always the brave one," he insisted. "If you hadn't been brave enough to kiss me, we wouldn't even be here. I might have never..."

"Don't. Don't say that." Matt's eyes were glistening with tears. "You saved my life, remember?"

"But I might have never developed the ability to cure you!" Mohinder burst out. "I could have lost you by now. It was _you_. It was falling in love with you that made all that possible."

"I love you," Matt whispered, kissing him.

But still Mohinder hadn't finished. "So let me be the brave one. For once."

Matt nodded silently.

Mohinder sat back and pulled his shirt over his shoulders, then moved forward to slide Matt's shirt off. It was like a ritual. Although life in a small apartment meant it was hardly their first close encounter, it still felt new and halting, especially when dark fingers trailed down the white stomach, each motion followed by wide eyes. The second stage was more difficult, but he felt sheltered by that amazed gaze, and when he was finally there, totally revealed and trembling, Matt let out a long, slow breath.

"I think," he said, his voice barely even audible, "I think--"

_I can't read thoughts,_ Mohinder thought wildly. _What do you think? Please, tell me._

"I think I've got to touch you," Matt blurted out, and then he laughed. "Did that sound like something out of a porno?"

But this time it was Mohinder who'd lost his breath. "Touch me, then," he rasped. And echoing Matt's motion earlier, he grabbed one of his hands and drew it toward him. They didn't speak again for several minutes, and by the time Mohinder's mouth broke into a cry of "please, please," they were body to body, naked and intoxicated by their closeness, adoring each other.

There was some more awkwardness then, of course, with weird liquids and foil wrappers and Matt sort of sniffing his fingers suspiciously, but like the brave one Mohinder urged him to stop thinking, stop worrying, stop doing anything but touching him, and when Matt finally listened Mohinder could turn his focus on himself and try to relax, try to feel something except for nervous. He wasn't used to this, didn't know how it was supposed to feel, and part of him just wanted to get it over with.

But then Matt was touching him where he did know what to expect, and Mohinder melted. The feeling of having a hand not his own, not tentative on a foreign landscape but sure and confident on a familiar one, made it so much easier to trust, to relax, to believe. He cried out.

It scared Matt a little. "Are you OK?"

"Yes,_God_ yes..."

"Can I..."

He was asking _permission_?

Mohinder surged forward and kissed him hard. "Please," he said.

And then all at once it was happening, and Matt was dumbfounded because it was supposed to be disgusting and dirty and wrong, that's what popular culture and peer pressure had told him since he was old enough to experience it. But it wasn't disgusting, maybe it was a little dirty but it was right. More than right. Perfect. Mohinder was perfect. His skin with the sweat glistening on his shoulder was perfect. His small, agonized cries were perfect. Even those odd moments of hesitation and awkwardness and rearrangement were perfect because they were real and Mohinder was really here with him in this moment.

And Mohinder's mind was somewhere primitive and pre-speech. He was thinking in kaleidoscope fragments of color and sensation and it was like falling into a prism, pieces of color returning home to their source, to perfect white.

Their eyes met an instant before the world turned off, and there was a moment of perfect understanding and clarity.

_This is forever._

* * *

"We're going to have to figure out what to tell Molly," Matt observed lazily, kissing along the line of Mohinder's collarbone. He was breathless, blissed out, but still he couldn't stop touching him. The contact was like a drug. Without it he was dizzy, he suffered cravings.

"I think she knows," Mohinder laughed, running his fingers through the short-cropped hair and bending to plant a kiss among it. "She is a remarkably perceptive girl, you know."

"She takes after you."

"Nonsense. You're the annoyingly perceptive one." Somehow everything was uproariously funny right now. Perhaps it was just that they were naked and unburdened by guilt or fear for the first time in ages. After tragedy has darkened a landscape for too long, the world becomes a great comedy in contrast. "I certainly wasn't about to open my eyes until you opened them for me. Then again, I suppose that is what detectives do."

"I thought that's what scientists do," said Matt carelessly, but Mohinder seized up. Matt leaned back to gaze at him curiously.

_It's both. Do you suppose that is a sign?_

"Shanti..." he whispered brightly. For a moment, he could see her face, rich as sunlight. He could see her eyes, full of generosity. And he could feel the embrace of a sister he'd never known, a sensation at once warm and painful. He wanted to cry.

"Hey, are you OK?" Matt brought him back to reality. "You look a little sad."

Mohinder shook his head, gazed at him. "Do you believe," he asked, feeling a little foolish, "that people who leave us behind give us something as they go? A gift, of sorts?"

"I think we get gifts all the time," Matt said. "And not just from people who are gone." He shrugged nonchalantly. "Look at what you've given me, and you're right here."

He had a true talent in his ability to say the profound as though it were of no consequence, Mohinder thought with some amusement. A phrase sprang to mind. Was it a quote from somewhere? He couldn't remember. It felt like wisdom from the ages, but he couldn't recall its source.

"'We are given legacies by those who leave us, but also by those who stay by our side.'"

**The End**


End file.
